Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, Year B

“If God Is For Us, Who Can Be Against Us?

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the Second Sunday of Lent, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 25, 2024

The Bible is not the story of our quest for God, rather the story of God’s relentless and passionate quest for us. It is the story of love, not our love for God, but God’s love for us. In the Bible, it is evidently clear that the brokenness, the dysfunction, the sins of the human race is overmatched and outmatched by God’s incredible and indescribable love, compassion and patience. As such, littered in the Bible are assuring, comforting and endearing promises that underscore this very reality. In our Second Reading for today (Romans 8:31b-34), we find one of those soothing and cherished biblical assurances: “Brothers and sisters, if God is for us, who can be against us?” If the almighty God, the Creator and Lord of the universe, takes our side, nothing can harm us, in the long run. Nothing! Not Satan! Not his evil spirits! The gates of hell will not prevail against the people of God, which is what the Church is. 

But is God really for us? How do we know that God is for us? Because of Jesus Christ! Jesus himself said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life” (John 3:16). God gave Jesus up to die in order to save us from death, which is the necessary punishment for sin. In his letter to the Christians in Rome, the great St. Paul said, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Now, wages and gifts are opposites. Wages are necessary; gifts are free. Wages are demanded by justice; gifts are chosen and given out of love. Wages are deserved; gifts are not. Because of our dysfunction, we don’t deserve God, or heaven, or salvation. It would be arrant arrogance to think we did. It would be insane to tell God after you die that you deserve God’s eternal life, that you deserve infinite and perfect joy. No one deserves it. But the incredible news, the Good News, the Gospel, is that God freely chose to love us and spared nothing to save us from the just punishment that our sins deserved— namely, exclusion from himself and his life and his heaven. God did not spare anything, not even the life of his only beloved Son. If you are still looking for an empirical and concrete proof of God’s love for you, look at a cross. If you want to know how much God loves you, look at a cross. And when you look at a cross, look at the arms of Jesus. Where are they? Not held close to his chest or his sides; they are extended out to the opposite ends of the world. The posture of his hands is that of embrace, embracing everybody. His hands are opened out and pointed in every direction without limit. Nothing can limit his love, not even our sins. Our sins only limit our reception of his love, but not his love. If you are still looking for evidence of God’s love for you, look at a cross, and look at the wounds of Jesus, his five wounds. Each of his wounds is a gate opened for his love to pour out. 

On this second week of Lent, we are meant to reflect on this powerful statement, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” You know, someone can look at those words and then replies, “Well, I will tell you who can be against you! The IRS, your boss at work, your in-laws, your known and unknown enemies, corrupt politicians, terrorists, a rogue police officer, natural disasters, illness, and on and on.” As puny human beings, our real-life enemies may threaten and shake our belief, trust and confidence in the ideas communicated by St. Paul. Despite such biblical promises, we still have to endure physical, mental, and emotional struggles, so much so that we may wonder if God is truly for us. Check this out! The man who wrote the very words we read today faced the same struggles we face and even much more. Five times at the hands of his fellow Jews, St. Paul was given forty lashes, three times he was beaten with rods, he was stoned once, three times he experienced shipwreck, he faced so many dangers and problems on seas, on lands, in the wilderness and from all directions (2 Corinthians 11:24-28). And let’s not forget that St.  Despite all those life-ending problems he faced, he still wrote that if God is for us, no one can be against us. What is he talking about? St. Paul is looking at all the problems of this world— threat, opposition, persecutions, trials, suffering etc. He is looking at them and comparing them to the everlasting power and presence of God Almighty, and he is declaring the winner. No one can overcome God’s love for us.  Nothing and no one can defeat God, and therefore insofar as we are with God, nothing can defeat us in the end. Nothing can defeat our divine protection, not even our sins, if only we sincerely repent of them. If God is with us, who can be against us? No one! Nothing, except you. Only you can be against you if you do not make God your absolute Shelter and Refuge.  

God bless you!