1ST SUNDAY HOMILY OF LENT – YR B
THEME: THE WATERS OF BAPTISM
BY: FR LIVINUS C. IGBODEKWE
Imagine the world without water. Everything goes into extinction. The only thing that will remain will be mountains and deserted lands. Water is life as we normally say. No water, no life. God himself is the One who put life into the primeval waters because without the Holy Spirit animating the waters, plants, vegetations and sea creatures couldn’t have emerged from the deep. The Scripture says that The Spirit of God hovered (brooded) over the face of the deep. The two most important things that makes the earth to be the womb of life are the light and the waters. God preserved the waters in the upper chambers that the waters on earth may never be exhausted but rather recycled. This gives all things their season under the sun. Both foods and their seeds come through water. At the touch of the water seeds germinate and by the warmth of the sun their viability breaks forth into colours and solidity.
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In the same vein, God had purposed to bring about divine life through water. “Noah and the flood” is a story that establishes the fact that water can save and kill at the same time. Water, when it becomes a flood, is disastrous. And at such time, only true faith in God and good life can give hope of life to anyone. It rained 40 days and nights but the people on earth couldn’t sense danger in order to start listening to the warnings of Noah.
Faith demarcated life on earth into two: the baptised and the non baptised.The flood became the water for a new birth and new creation for only 8 persons (the baptised) in Noah’s household (1 Peter 3:18-22) while it became destruction to the rest of humanity (the unbaptised). The Ark of the Word kept them alive and afloat until the flood receded. Jesus emphasized that if anyone must be part of the new creation, he/she must be baptized in Water and Spirit. The rainbow which is a combination of light and water became the sign of a new creation under a covenant of life. In the same way, the Water and the Spirit are the sign of the new birth in Christ Jesus under the covenant of everlasting life.
We are grateful to God for the gift of water. What do we do with water? We keep farming to feed humanity especially in these days of impending famine in our country. And we thank God for the gift of baptism that still saves us now. What do we do with it? We keep preaching repentance so as to keep baptising all who believe until we save the whole humanity.
Happy first Sunday of Lent!
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