The first
Sunday of Lent always starts with the story of Jesus being thrown into the
desert, of Jesus being tempted and tested. Temptation.
That is something all of us have to deal with in our lives of faith,
isn’t it? In fact,
doesn’t it seem like we are tempted in a special way during Lent? We can
give up something like chocolate during Lent, and during other times of the
year, we can go for weeks without eating chocolate or thinking about it, but
then Lent comes around, and it seems like what we give up is everywhere we turn,
calling our name.
What I
find interesting, is that it is God’s Holy Spirit that drives Jesus into the
desert as recounted in Mark’s Gospel. It is the
Spirit that puts Jesus into the place where he is tempted by Satan. Yet, we
know that Jesus is not alone in the desert wilderness. Unfortunately, he is there with the wild beasts who threaten to destroy him. But
fortunately, he is also surrounded by angels who minister to him. We all
have wild beasts or demons in our lives that threaten to destroy us, don’t
they? And we all
have angels who appear to us and help us and minister to us as well.
From
today’s Gospel of Jesus being tempted in the desert, we learn this: Lent is to
be a time of transformation and renewal. In Mark’s
Gospel, it says that Jesus is driven into the desert right after his baptism in
the Jordan River. It sounds like that
Jesus needed this time of trial and testing and transformation before he
started his earthly ministry. And we
need to be driven into a time of conversion and transformation and renewal as
well. All human
institutions are in need of transformation and change and renewal, because by
its very definition, anything human is flawed and not perfect. Out church, our society, our lives – they are
all in need of change and renewal. We gave
you these Lenten promise cards to fill out. And we
asked you to turn them in not because anyone is going to read them or going to
call you to task about them – in fact they are being place in this sealed box
here and we are going to burn them when Easter comes around and we will lift
our Lenten promises up to the Lord in our prayers and in our celebration of
Easter. We asked
you to turn them in because we wanted you to make a commitment to God and to
our faith community that you are using this time of Lent for conversion and
renewal, that you are serious about you commitment to God. And many
people told me that they thought it would take a few minutes to fill those
cards out. But it took a lot of time and thought, didn’t it? Anything
we take seriously in life takes a lot of time and thought and commitment,
doesn’t it?
When I was
walking the Camino in Spain those three weeks, I heard someone say this: If you
do not carry St James in your heart as you walking the Camino each day, if you
do not bring him into your heart and in your mind, then you will not find him
when you arrive in his Cathedral in Santiago. I found
that to be so true. The minute I landed
in Spain, I really felt that I had entered the land of St James. I prayed with
him each day on the Camino. I lifted up
all of you and all my prayer intentions through the intercessions of St James. And when I
entered his Cathedral at the conclusion of my pilgrimage, when I went up to hug
his statue and thank him for helping me arrival safely, I felt so much emotion
and joy. I really felt his presence and
his welcome. And that
is how we are to approach Lent. In our
prayers and our fasting and our works of charity, in our time during Lent at
mass and in the sacrament of reconciliation and in praying the stations of the
cross, we are to feel God’s presence and are to walk with Jesus in our Lenten
journey, to accompany him on his way to the cross. And if we
do that, if we take Lent seriously and really try to honor our Lent promises,
then we will truly feel the joy of the resurrection at Easter time.
Mary
Oliver is one of my favorite American poets.
Her poems are filled with love and honesty and a sense of a spiritual
journey. Recently, I heard Mary Oliver say this in an
interview with Krista Tippett on the radio program ON BEING on National Public
Radio: “Things take the time they take.
Don’t worry. How many roads did St. Augustine follow before he became St.
Augustine?" What a wonderful quote! We all
need patience on our Lenten journey. We
need commitment and steadfastness and courage as we travel these forty days. Like St
Augustine, we may need to purge and change and transform a lot in our lives in
order to become the person God calls us to become. We may need to take a lot of radical steps. Being in the desert with Jesus in not
easy. Being tempted and attacked by
those demons and wild animals will not be easy. But let us take courage. Let us have faith. God is with us during these 40 days.
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