First Sunday of Lent

First Sunday of Lent

Genesis 9:8-15; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15

We have now entered the season of lent, a forty day period of time to prepare candidates for baptism and confirmation and  also one of preparation for all the people of God. It is a time to reflect on Christ’s journey to the cross ending at the Resurrection.  Ash Wednesday and  Lent began as a way for Catholics to remind themselves to repent of their sins in a manner similar to how people in the Old Testament repented in sackcloth, ashes, and fasting.  During this season all Christians are invited to fast and pray and be prepared for the suffering and death of Jesus and to wait for his suffering and death.  

Lent invites us to enter into the desert, the birthplace of the people of God of the first covenant. The Hebrew people who escaped from Egypt as scattered tribes arrived the Promised Land as one nation under God. It was in the desert that they become a people of God by covenant. In the course of their history
when their love and faithfulness to God grew cold, the prophets would suggest their return to the desert to rediscover their identity, their vocation and their mission as a way of reawakening their faith and strengthening their covenant relationship with God.  The great prophets Elijah and John the Baptist were people of the desert: they lived in the desert, ate desert food and adopted a simple desert lifestyle. The desert is the university where God teaches His people.

In today’s gospel we read that after Jesus was baptized “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.  He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him” (Mark 1:12-13). It is in the desert alone that one could have such a meaningful encounter of the Holy Spirit as well as Satan, of the wild beasts as well as the holy angels.   The desert was the school where Jesus came to distinguish between the voice of God which he should follow and the voice of Satan which is temptation.  How many voices do we hear from the moment we get up in the morning till the moment we go to sleep at night? The countless voices in the daily paper, the soliciting voices on the radio and the television, the voices of those who live and work with us, not forgetting our own unceasing inner voices. In the desert we leave most of these voices behind to focus on distinguishing between the guiding voice of God and the tempting voice of Satan.

In the desert we come to know ourselves, our strengths and weaknesses, and our divine calling. In the desert Jesus encountered beasts and angels. There are wild beasts and angels in everyone of us. Sometimes, owing to our superficial self knowledge, we fail to recognize the wild beasts in us and give in to vainglory, or we fail to recognize the angel in us and give in to self-hatred. But in the silence and recollection of the desert we come to terms with ourselves as we really are, we are reconciled with the beasts and the angels in our lives and then we begin to experience peace again for the first time. Lent is the time for the desert experience. We cannot all afford to buy a camel and head off for the desert. But we can all create a desert space in our overcrowded lives. We can set aside a place and time to be alone daily with God, a time to distance ourselves from the many noises and voices that bombard our lives every day, a time to hear God’s word, a time to rediscover who we are before God, a time to say yes to God and no to Satan as Jesus did.

Lent was formerly a time of severe penance as a way of purifying ourselves from our sinful habits and preparing to celebrate the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ with a renewed commitment to follow him.
The message we have in today’s readings tells us that because of the triumph of Jesus by His death on the Holy Cross, through Him and with Him, we can also be triumphant in our battle against evil. The first reading tells us the story of deluge, the floods during the time of  Noah.  God sees that the world had become very evil, practicing all kinds of abominations that offended the Lord God.  God tells Noah to build an ark and to gather his family and some living creatures of all kinds and God saves them. This flood water that saved them symbolizes our baptism and the rain bow that we see in the sky is telling us that God will never again disturb the people with such drastic measures.

In the Second Reading taken from the First Letter of Peter, we heard the author speaking to the believers about their suffering and the sufferings of Jesus.  Peter tells them that since Jesus had triumphed, they would also triumph. Their Baptism was the pledge of their triumph for it gave them a share in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  He also tells the Gentile community that Jesus suffered for our sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring us to God. The sacrifice of Jesus was not just for a few, but for all of us, from the beginning of time until the end of time. He, who was sinless, took upon Himself the weight of our sins and allowed Himself to be crucified in our place so God the Father may be appeased. Christ died for us!

In the Gospel of today, Mark tells us that after his baptism, Jesus goes into the desert for forty days. And, during that time, he is tested by the Evil One.  Mark does not say how he was tested or tempted but Matthew and Luke do.  These tests are really examples of the kind of tests that Jesus was to face in the course of  his public life and how we are going to be tempted in our life.  There is the temptation to change stones to bread so that Jesus satisfies the hunger, to jump down the pinnacle of the temple and present himself as Messiah, and finally to worship Satan and receive the universe as a reward.  These temptations can be summarised to say that it was an invitation to be unfaithful to the Mission of the Lord. Satan shows the easy way but the Father wants Jesus to be faithful to his mission of suffering and death to rise again.

The second part of the Gospel tells us that Jesus began his public life.  He takes over from John the Baptist who has been arrested, literally “handed over”.  In time, Jesus too will be “handed over”, as will his disciples, and thousands of other followers down to our own day.  The Gospel also tells us about the Message of  Jesus: The kingdom of God is at hand;  repent and  believe and listen to the good news.  Jesus calls us to “Repent!”  This call is not just to feel sorry about our past;  it is not just to stop the bad things we are doing now. Jesus is calling for a radical change in our whole way of seeing life and the world.  It is a call to a change of heart, metanoia, which involves a total transformation. The Christian in Paul’s words is a “new person”; in Christ, we undergo a personality change.

He tells us of the urgency that is involved.  It is immediate and a person cannot afford to delay or waste his time.  This is the opportune moment given by the Lord and the person is called upon to act and if  he doesn’t,  the opportunity will be  lost forever.  Thus person has to have single minded determination to listen to the lord and to follow him.   Jesus says that the Kingdom of God is at hand. His kingdom is not a political kingdom but a spiritual one.  That is why when Pilate questioned,  Jesus said  that his kingdom is not of  this world.  This kingdom is God’s rule in the heart of the individual.  This was established with creation and man lost it through his disobedience and God wants to restore it in Jesus.  This will be fully realised at the end of times when Jesus restores all things to the Father.  

How are we to achieve this kingdom?  We can achieve this by “believing in the Gospel”.  Not just believing that the Gospel is true;  but believing  IN the Gospel.  There is a world of difference between believing something and believing in something,  or,  even more significantly,  believing in a person.  Where the Kingdom is concerned, this involves a total commitment of ourselves to the way of  life presented in the Gospel and a sharing of  its vision of life. This will mean a turning upside down of many of the values we take for granted and which prevail in our world.

As members of the Kingdom of God, during the Lenten Season, we are called to repent of our sins that offend God.  We are called to frequently remember the triumph of Jesus.  We are called to triumphantly live our faith in Christ as baptized children of God.  We are called to go forward and shine by our obedience, our servitude, our charity towards others, through prayers, sacrifices, all in the love of God.

We are invited by Jesus Christ to do specifically three kinds of sacrifices during this season: alms giving, praying and fasting. There are many people suffering today as a result of our economic crisis. Many of us are so lucky to still have a job.  Many people have lost their jobs and are suffering.  The food banks are suffering because people are afraid of giving.  During this season,  be a booster in your charitable donations.  Mark up your charitable donations by at least 2%.  

Pray, pray and pray. I cannot emphasize this enough.  Our nation needs serious prayers.  We need to invite the chief economist to come and help us.  Only God can help us through these problems.  Let us not deceive ourselves that we can figure it all out.  

Fasting is important.  Give up some meals or some things you love best.  When you give them up, do not keep them.  Donate those things out.  Do not save them for after Lent.  Fasting is not an opportunity for you to do a little more saving.  The money you would have spent for that meal or that drink, give it out.  What is the kind of fasting that the Lord wants?  It is easy to give up food, rub our bodies with ashes and yet not change in our ways.  One may fast during this season,  pray daily,  and give to the food cupboard and yet estranged with his family or a family member.  God expects more from you during this season.  The emphasis should not so much be on what you have given up but what you are doing to further God’s kingdom here on earth.  The fast that is pleasing to the Lord is one in which you go out of your way to do things positively:  work in the food cupboard,  speak to people you have cut off from your life because they are a source of annoyance to you, visit people in prison, help elderly with chores or just visit them, reconcile with those who have hurt you, pray God’s blessings on your enemies.