THE
DIRECTION OF LENT
SERMON PREACHED BY FR. TONY NOBLE ON MARCH 5, 2006
Mark 1:12 "The spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness."
Thus does St. Mark describes Jesus going from his baptism by John straight into the wilderness. There is no reference to 40 days of fasting - though this is a logical conclusion - nor is there a description of the three temptations of Satan. But we all know the deal. So we have begun our Lenten journey to somehow mirror our Lord's 40 days in the wilderness. A time when he came to grips with his vocation and mission. A time when he grew in spirit and a time when he prayed and fasted. A very good example for us.
For centuries Christians have embraced this season as a holy time in union with Jesus. We try to fast, to abstain and give up things, to retreat into our own little wildernesses. Some people find this strange, or an unfortunate relic from the past - the sort of people who think Easter is about eggs and Christmas about presents! Lent is strange, and it is from the past. But it is no unfortunate relic. We live in an age where there are plenty of things to give up and should be given up. Where fasting is a daily feature of ordinary life in many parts of the world. We have it far too easy to avoid a season of fasting and self denial.
Thousands of years ago Isaiah said this: "Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me - to let the oppressed go free and break every yoke, to share your bread with the hungry and shelter the homeless poor." Fasting may benefit our waistlines - but its purpose is to make us more spiritual, to make us better people and more Christ-like.
Today's gospel is linked in our lectionary with that well known story of Noah's Ark. At first this seems a rather unusual theme - until we remember that it rained 40 days and 40 nights. Jesus is alone with God, and no food or drink, for 40 days. Noah is alone with God, and a few hundred animals, with lots of water, for 40 days. But the story of Noah's Ark has more significance than just retreating for 40 days. St. Peter takes up the whole theme of Noah and his family and the animals being saved through water in his first Epistle. In today's second reading he says that, like Noah and all of them in the Ark, we also saved through water, the water of baptism. How? Because baptism saves us through the mystery of Jesus' death and resurrection. As St. Peter puts it so quaintly: Baptism.... saves you, not as removal of dirt from the body, but... through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
So on this first Sunday of Lent we not only have the concept of Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days, and of us going with him, but also the theme of baptism - which is our sharing in the death and resurrection of Jesus. So Lent is a time for us to consider the Passion of Christ. And gradually the hymns and the readings will lead us through the mystery of what Christ suffered, and of his crucifixion - and our liturgy reflects that: more subdued music, no flowers, no Gloria, no Alleluias, etc.
In fact we have begun a 6 week journey which culminates in Holy Week, and the celebration of those events which won for us salvation. Salvation is the key word in Lent - and it doesn't need a theological explanation. We only have to look at the crucifix to see what salvation means. It is not an empty cross we contemplate - but a cross carrying the figure of him whose death give us eternal life. Of him who said that, to have life to the full we need to take up our own cross and die to sin. This challenge of Jesus to us is the challenge of Lent. Thus it ever was!
At our baptisms we were marked with the sign of the cross because it is our sign, and its mystery is embraced in baptism. The season of Lent climaxes with that wonderful service on Holy Saturday called the Easter vigil. It is the third unique liturgy following on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday which together as a whole celebrate the central mystery of our faith: the death and the resurrection of Christ. On Holy Saturday, as we gather in the darkness of Easter Eve waiting for the Resurrection, the Church bids us renew again our baptismal vows, and the font is blessed, and water is sprinkled. The Easter Vigil is the culmination of our Lenten journey - and the concept of water and the resurrection are entwined within it, as they were for St. Peter all those years ago.
St. Peter reminds us that the Resurrection was the result of Christ’s death.
No cross - No Resurrection.
So we undergo this penitential season, this season of reflection on the suffering and the death of Christ, in order to experience afresh the glory and the joy of the Resurrection. As the collect from the Angelus says: "by his cross and passion we may be brought to the glory of his resurrection."
Finally, lest our concentration on Jesus in the wilderness be too stark or too hard, let me present another journey of Jesus as a Lenten theme. I refer to last week's story of the Transfiguration, Jesus going up the mountain to be alone with God and to pray. This time no fasting and no devil with temptations, but rather the opposite: enjoyable company, shining glory, heavenly bliss.
Here is a definite Lenten challenge:
To make our prayer more in union with God.
To fix our eyes more on Jesus.
To learn of him.
To spend time just in adoration - or as the hymn puts it "wonder, love and praise."
So a Lenten journey in 2 directions:
Up the mountain, and into the wilderness.
As long as we journey somewhere!