On Lent, Second Sermon

As the Easter festival draws near, dearly beloved, the very return of the season points us to the Lenten fast. Yet our words too must add their encouragement, which, with the Lord’s help, may be neither useless to the active nor tiresome to the devout. For since the meaning of these days calls for an increase in all our religious duties, there is no one, I am sure, who is not glad to be urged on to good works. For our nature, as long as we are mortal, will be changeable. Even while it is advancing to the highest pursuits of virtue, it can always fall back; and in the same way it can always go forward. And this is the true uprightness of the perfect: that they should never assume they are perfect, in case they slacken in the purpose of a journey not yet finished and, by giving up the desire to make progress, fall into the danger of failing. [a] And so, dearly beloved, since none of us is so perfect and holy that he cannot be more perfect and more holy, let us all together, without difference of rank and without distinction of merit, pursue our race with devout eagerness, from what we have reached toward what we still aspire to, and let us make some needed additions to our usual devotions. For whoever is not more attentive than usual to religion in these days shows that at other times he is not attentive enough.

That is why the reading of the apostle’s proclamation sounded in our ears so fittingly, saying, “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” For what is more acceptable than this time, what more suited to salvation than these days, in which war is declared on vices and progress is made in every virtue? You always had to keep watch, Christian soul, against the enemy of your salvation, so that no spot would lie open to the tempter’s snares. But now you must use greater caution and keener prudence, when that same enemy of yours rages with fiercer hatred. For now, throughout the whole world, the power of his ancient rule is being taken from him, and the countless vessels he held captive are being rescued from his grasp. The people of every nation and every language are breaking away from their cruel plunderer. No race of people can now be found that does not struggle against the tyrant’s laws, while throughout all the borders of the earth many thousands upon thousands are being prepared to be reborn in Christ. And as the birth of a new creation draws near, spiritual wickedness is being driven out by those it once possessed. So the blasphemous fury of the plundered enemy frets, and seeks new gains because it has lost its ancient right. Tireless and always awake, he snatches at any sheep he finds wandering carelessly from the sacred folds, intent on leading them over the cliffs of riches and down the slopes of luxury into the dwellings of death. And so he inflames their anger, feeds their hatreds, sharpens their desires, mocks their self-control, and stirs up their gluttony. [b]

For whom would he not dare to try, when he did not hold back his treacherous attempts even from our Lord Jesus Christ? As the Gospel story has made known, our Savior, who was true God, wished to show himself true man as well and to banish every wicked and mistaken opinion. So after the fast of forty days and nights he felt the hunger of human weakness. Then the devil, delighted to have found in him a sign of a nature that could suffer and die, said, in order to test the power he feared, “If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” Certainly the Almighty could do this. It was easy for a creature of any kind to change, at the Creator’s command, into the form it was commanded to take, just as, when he willed it, he changed the water into wine at the wedding feast. But here it suited his saving purposes better that his proud enemy’s cunning should be overcome by the Lord not by the power of his Godhead but by the mystery of his lowliness. At last, when the devil had been put to flight and the tempter defeated in all his arts, angels came to the Lord and served him. This was so that, since he was true man and true God, his manhood might be kept unstained by those crafty questions, and his Godhead displayed by those holy services. So let the sons and disciples of the devil be put to shame, who are filled with the poison of vipers and deceive the simple. They deny that both true natures are present in Christ, robbing either his Godhead of manhood or his manhood of Godhead. Yet both falsehoods are destroyed by a double proof given at one and the same time: his bodily hunger showed his perfect manhood, and the angels who served him showed his perfect Godhead. [e]

So, dearly beloved, we are taught by our Redeemer’s command that “man does not live on bread alone, but on every word of God,” and it is right that Christian people, however much they abstain, should desire to be filled with the “word of God” rather than with bodily food. So let us enter on the celebration of the solemn fast with ready devotion and eager faith: not with a barren abstinence from food, which is often forced on us by weakness of body or by the disease of greed, but with generous kindness. Then we may truly be among those of whom the Truth himself says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” So let works of devotion be our delight, and let us be filled with the kinds of food that feed us for eternity. Let us rejoice in the feeding of the poor whom our generosity has satisfied. Let us delight in the clothing of those whose nakedness we have covered with the clothes they needed. Let our kindness be felt by the sick in their illnesses, by the frail in their infirmities, by exiles in their hardships, by orphans in their destitution, and by widows left alone in their sadness. In helping them there is no one who cannot do some measure of good. For no one’s income is small whose heart is big, and the measure of one’s mercy and goodness does not depend on the size of one’s means. There is never good reason to lack a wealth of goodwill, even with a slender purse. Certainly the spending of the rich is greater and that of the poor smaller, but there is no difference in the fruit of their works where the purpose of the workers is the same. [f]

But, beloved, in this opportunity for practicing the virtues there are other notable crowns as well, to be won without emptying granaries or paying out money: if loose living is driven off, if drunkenness is given up, and the lusts of the flesh are tamed by the laws of chastity; if hatreds turn into affection, if enmities are turned into peace, if meekness puts out anger, if gentleness forgives wrongs; if, in short, the conduct of master and of slaves is so well ordered that the rule of the one is milder and the discipline of the other more complete. It is by such observances, then, dearly beloved, that God’s mercy will be won, the charge of sin wiped out, and the adorable Easter festival devoutly kept. The devout emperors of the Roman world have long kept this with holy observance. In honor of the Lord’s passion and resurrection they bend their lofty power, relax the severity of their decrees, and set many of their prisoners free, so that on the days when the world is saved by the divine mercy, we may eagerly follow their clemency, which is modeled on the heavenly goodness. So let Christian peoples imitate their princes, and be urged on to forbearance in their own homes by these royal examples. For it is not right that private laws should be harsher than public ones. Let faults be forgiven, let bonds be loosed, let offenses be wiped out, let plans of revenge come to nothing, so that the holy festival, through divine and human grace, may find everyone happy and everyone innocent: through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God, for endless ages of ages. Amen. [h]