The Covenant: Homily for Sunday, February 18, 2024

In the Old Testament, there are four specific covenants that were offered to the people. There was, as we see today, the first one, the covenant of Noah. Then there's the covenant that God makes with Abraham. Then there's the covenant that God makes with Moses. And finally, the covenant that God makes with David.

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Whenever we read about water, we should think about our baptism. And the covenant made with Noah today the first of four Old Testament covenants made by a God who is desperate to save us.

The Covenant

So you may not have picked it up right away, but ironically, all of these readings that we get today are about baptism. They may not have seemed as much, but when we read them, they’re all about either prefiguring baptism, or about baptism, or what Jesus does right after his own baptism.

It’s coincidental because this was not the original date for Wesley’s baptism. COVID got in the way back in January when we were going to have the baptism. But we get a picture today of covenants. In the Old Testament, there are four specific covenants that were offered to the people.

There was, as we see today, the first one, the covenant of Noah. Then there’s the covenant that God makes with Abraham. Then there’s the covenant that God makes with Moses. And finally, the covenant that God makes with David.

Now, the church has always described marriage as a covenant, not a contract. In civil law, marriage is a contract. I do this, you do that, we’re happy. And divorce is the breaking of a contract. A covenant is different because a covenant is not just a partnership between two people. It’s a union between two people that is so powerful that those two become one.

And a covenant means you’re all in. It’s not 50/50, it’s 100/100. You can’t say, “Well, I’ll do just enough to make this marriage successful.” Those of you who are married, of course, know this far better than I. It’s a total and entire self-gift to another.

Jesus, what we hear today in terms of the temptation, this occurs right after his own baptism. The same Spirit of God who says, “This is my beloved son, listen to him,” immediately drives him into the desert to be tempted. He doesn’t go of his own accord, he goes because the Spirit drives him into the desert.

What an odd thing. But in the desert, which is always a symptom of absence of God and sin and temptation and so forth, whenever we see desert in the scriptures, it’s not a grace-filled moment. When he’s in the desert, he encounters that even in the midst of this sin and these temptations, he cannot but be in the presence of God.

The Dalbecs have made a great statement of faith and hope in our culture by having a child. You and I both know these are not easy times. And yet when we look at little Wesley, we are reminded that God has not given up on us. That yet again, another beloved child of God is in our midst. It is good that Wesley exists, and he reminds us that it is good that we exist.

We live in the midst of a world where there is all kinds of sin and sadness. We must be, if we are to be faithful to the covenants that prefigured the ultimate covenant, the covenant and the covenant maker, the Lord Jesus himself, we must recognize that what we do here has to be fundamentally different than anything that happens out there.

And it is, because mass has a first and foremost priority. It is to worship God. It’s why we come. If one person were here, it would still have infinite value because we would be worshipping God. It’s why we come to mass. We also come to Mass because, as the first reading in terms of temptation reminds us, and all the events that happened before Noah and the Ark, which were horribly sinful, so bad, in fact, that God was just going to give up on the whole enterprise, we come because we know we live in a world of brokenness.

And not only are we ourselves broken, but we commit, we contribute to that brokenness by our own sin. And yet, we are not pessimistic. Just as Wesley’s parents were faithful and hopeful, so too are we. Because we enter into this spirit of Lent, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving as the ways in which we profess this, because we know deep in our hearts that God forgives our sins when we ask.

We know that when we can have some humility and step back and say, “We are not God. God is God. We stand before God because God is God.” That’s why we come to worship Him. It’s why we hear God’s Word. It’s why we seek and strive to recognize the presence of God in each other, because it’s all about God and our relationship with God.

Today, we celebrate the great gift of new life in the sacrament of baptism. But we also have one last thing that I would like to encourage us to do. Now, Nathan grew up in this parish, so this is his parish. He knows St. Albert the Great.

But we have an obligation to remind him again and again that it isn’t just a one-time support, “Isn’t this great? Isn’t it wonderful?” But we have to be that community that constantly is welcoming and supporting. Those of you who have lots of experience in raising children, and your children may even now be adults, know that there are going to be challenges. There probably already have been. Life doesn’t always go the way it does.

But they’re able to better love Wesley if they feel the love and the support of this parish community. So as we might be tempted to see things not go so well, let us ask the Lord in our own heart and lives to be those examples of love so that the Dalbecks, and Wesley especially, will know the love and the support that’s present in this great community of faith. of faith.

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