Liturgical Colour : Purple/Violet

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, today we heard about the covenant which God had established with Abraham, the father of many nations and our father in faith. God made the promise which He fulfilled to Abraham, and God never did for once abandon the faithfulness which He had shown since the very first moment He interacted with us. It is always us who have always reneged on our promises and broken our relationship with our Lord.

And God made real, complete and perfect the covenant which He had established by sending His own Son, Jesus, into the world, so that through Him God may make a people who had been lost in the darkness to find their way once again to the Lord. This is what God had wanted to happen with us, and this is also what we all have been awaiting for.

But many of us became lost in our search for the Lord, and our purpose became corrupted, that we lost our sight on the Lord and instead we begin to give in to our human desires and emotions. They were too indignant in their ways and hardened their hearts such that no matter what the Lord had wanted to tell them, they refused to listen to reason.

And with regards to Abraham, who is the father and progenitor of many nations, the people of Israel, the Jews of Jesus’ time had grown to be exclusivist and elitist, in a sense that they thought of themselves as the only ones worthy of God’s grace and salvation, by the fact that they were the direct descendants of Abraham, and thus they thought of themselves as sole heirs of God’s covenant with Abraham.

But Jesus Himself mentioned in another related event to the one in today’s Gospel, that God could easily raise sons and children for Abraham from even rocks and stones. This means that being the children of Abraham alone did not mean anything for us as long as we do not do something to show that we truly deserve to be called the children of Abraham, our father in faith.

Ever since sin entered into the hearts of men, we have been estranged and separated from the love of our God, and from His presence. And as long as this is the case for us, there is no hope for us all. And that was why God sent us Jesus, as the fulfillment of His long awaited promise, and the proof of how God was faithful to His covenant with us. Through Jesus, our eyes and senses were opened, and we receive the fullness of God’s truth.

And that truth is that God loves us, and He wants us to be converted and changed from our sinful ways. He wants us to break free from the trap of our pride and arrogance, from the lures of our desires and greed, so that we may come to the realisation of our sinful nature, so that we would also not be like the people of Israel, who closed their hearts against the Lord’s call through Jesus our Lord, as they were deep in their pride and in their desires.

This Lent is a time for us, the perfect time for us to look deep into ourselves and reflect on our own actions. It is a time for us to take action and make a difference in our own lives. Let us all heed our Lord’s call and be genuine in our love and devotion to Him, and let us answer His call to mercy and forgiveness. Let us all influence one another and help each other that we may all draw ever closer to His forgiveness. God bless us all. Amen.