Readings: Ephesians 6:10-20; Psalm 144; Luke 13:31-35
In the First Reading of today, St. Paul exhorts us to be strong in the Lord.
Why?
We should be strong in the Lord because life is a spiritual warfare against the devil who is the enemy of all children of God.
We should be strong in the Lord because life is full of ups and downs, triumphs and defeats, success and failure, loss and gain, moments of test and seasons of testimony.
No matter what we face, what we lose, the battles we fight, those who are against us like Herod was against Jesus in today’s Gospel, no matter who rejects us as Jerusalem rejects the Lord, we must not allow our faith to die nor allow ourselves be crippled by fear, worry and despair.
Strength from the Lord comes from fervent prayer, from intimacy with the Holy Spirit, from a living faith, from a faithful relationship with God, from the awareness of God’s love for us, from trust in God’s power and promises and from the grace that God supplies.
Let us open ourselves to these sources of divine strength, so that when life hits us hard, when the battle gets fiercer, which it will, we will remain standing and victorious.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Baraka-Gukena Okami on October 27, 2022