Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this day we heard about God Who was angry at His people when they betrayed Him and went for the worship of the pagan idol, in the form of a golden calf, in a story that all of us are surely familiar with, as we must have heard it during our catechism classes. We heard how God became angry and how He punished them for their wrongdoings, by destroying those who have led the people to sin, and those who have refused to repent and follow God.

But many of us would not know or remember the part saying that Moses pleaded with God to spare His people from His anger and from the destruction He intended for them because of their sins. Many of us would not remember how Moses pleaded before God to think of the covenant which He had established with His faithful servants, and to remember of the great love which He had for all of mankind, His beloved creations.

In this story, we see the same narrative of sin and redemption which we often hear during this season of Lent, a time of penitence and repentance, where we are all called to change our wicked and mistaken ways, and to turn away from all these, following once again the path towards God our Lord and Saviour. In the story which we heard today, we hear a very important message for us all, that there is hope for us as long as we are willing to repent and commit ourselves to God.

But it will not be an easy path for us to take, for the path towards redemption and salvation in God is likely to be filled with challenges and obstacles, and Satan who is trying to tempt and lure us away from God, will certainly not remain passive or quiet while we are being drawn into the Lord’s salvation. He is actively trying to pull us away from God and to bring us down into the deepest depths of hell.

Shall we then follow his path or the path of the Lord? Satan’s path is apparently easier for us, more enticing, and more pleasurable, and indeed, more exciting than the path that God offers us, but at the end of that path is a great cliff, from which if we fall, we can never rise back up. On the other hand, God’s path, is a path of challenges, difficulties and also filled with many sufferings, and yet at the end of the journey is our eternal rewards in God.

The people of God in the desert chose the easy way out, when they thought that Moses and God had abandoned them after he ascended for forty days at Mount Horeb. They were too quickly tempted by the temptations of their flesh, and they did not have patience in them. They placed their trust in the gold and in all the wealth that they received when they left Egypt. The love for God was not in their hearts.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is a reminder to all of us, that through this season of Lent, and indeed throughout our lives, we should endeavour to resist the temptations of our flesh, and abandon the false idols that had kept us away from truly being devoted and faithful servants of the Lord our God. Are these false idols the same as the idols of Israel at that time? Maybe, and maybe not.

If we are talking about idols from stone, wood or anything else carved in the images of animals, beasts, and other worldly things, then we may not have these common in our world today, but if we talk about the false idols and gods of money, of wealth and human desires, then we can see indeed, how these, the pursuits of wealth, the greed of men for more and more, are keeping us away from God.

Let us all therefore learn and strive to keep faithfully God’s laws and commandments, and let us be disciplined in our lives, so that we may resist all the temptations of the devil and all of his seducers, and remain true in love to the Lord our God. May God bless us all, now and forever. Amen.