Through the Desert

 

First Sunday of Lent

Gn 9:8-15, Ps 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 1 Pt 3:18-22, Mk 1:12-15

The Spirit Drove Christ into the Desert

St. Mark tells us that the Spirit drove Christ into the Desert to be tempted by the Devil?  Why would God do that to himself?

The Desert is a place of Death

We have in our parish this beautiful poster of the Desert - it is at either Sunrise or Sunset - it seems to be a place of quiet, solitude, and beauty. Looking at this poster - you might be thinking to yourself - “I get it.  Jesus is about to begin His public ministry, so he is going to catch some rays and relax before getting busy saving the world.”  Nothing could be further from reality.

The Source of Death is our decision to Sin

St. Mark also tells us that Christ was driven into the desert to be tempted by Satan.  That tells us a bit about the reality of the Desert - it is the place of death.  There is no water, no shelter, no protection, everything is exposed, dries out and dies.  

The Israelites went into the Desert to Die to Slavery

When the Israelites went into the Desert it was so that they could die to the life of slavery in Egypt and so begin to live life as the chosen people of God.

The Desert is a dangerous place

The Desert is where we are alone, unprotected from the wild-beasts who are all scrambling to find their next meal - which if we are unprotected could be us.  The desert is populated with poisonous things - Snakes, Scorpions and the like - not a place where we could lie down and rest…

Why then does the Church send us into the Desert of Lent?

As I said - the desert is the place of lifelessness.  It is the place of Death.  For each of us, the desert is the place in our hearts where we choose sin, we choose to kill our relationship with God - that is the desert that we are called to enter into so that we can have a holy Lent.

The Desert of Lent is where we die to the Slavery of Sin

The Church sends us out into the Desert of Lent each year so that we can die to the slavery of Sin in our lives.  She does not send us into the desert unprepared, but sends us into the desert armed with the season of grace (God’s Love), and the weapons against the enemy - Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving.

On Ash Wednesday this past week the parish was packed with people, wall to wall.  The parking-lot was packed - and everyone was excited to be here.  In my experience of Lent, I know that this is early days, everyone is still enthusiastic about this journey - we have yet to stumble, fall or fail at our lenten disciplines - but that too is coming.

What is Sin?  What is Temptation?

All of us are sinners, we all commit sin.  There is nothing more embarrassing than to be a committed Christian and to recognize in your life that you are addicted to sin.  Even though you make a firm resolution in confession to avoid temptation to sin and the sin itself I still find myself committing sin in my life.  

Sin is when I freely take an action that is of grave matter that is directly opposed to the will of God.  Scripture tells us that the wages of Sin is death.  It also tells us the topics that make up grave matter.  The first 3 relate to God

1.  God Alone

2.  God’s name is Holy

3.  Take time to worship God on the Sabbath.

The last 7 are how we relate to one another.

4.  Honor your Parents

5.  Do not kill

6.  Do not commit adultery

7.  Do not steal

8.  Do not lie

9.  Do not covet your neighbor's wife

10. Do not covet your neighbor's goods.

That recognition leads me to the realization that I cannot escape Sin under my own power - that I am weak and that I need help. 

Sin kills our friendship with God - Sin is the Desert

God gave us the commandments (in the desert) to help us to live a good and holy life.  Yet all of us, find ourselves from time to time where we choose to break one or more of these commandments.  In that moment we choose to make ourselves God, and say to the Lord - you don’t know what is good for me - and instead to break the commandment - which kills off our ability to recognize the love of God.

When we do that we find ourselves in the midst of a spiritual desert - a place devoid of life and without the presence of God.  We truly are exposed to the wild beasts and vulnerable to death.  What can we do?

Psalm 107 - The Desert will become a place of springs

In Psalm 107 the Lord says that he will turn the “desert into streams, thirsty ground into springs of water…”.  The desert that the psalm refers to is the place of death that we find ourselves in this Lent.  It is the desert into which Christ preceded us to do battle with temptation by the Devil.  

Christ goes into our Deserts to help us win over sin

Christ goes into the desert - into the place in my life, your life where we choose to sin, where we exclude God from our life and where we begin to die to rescue us from the wages of Sin and Death.  That is what this Lenten season is about.  The Church equips us with Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving to give us the tools of conversion - so that we can die to the slavery to Sin and rise into the newness of life.

Prayer expresses our need for help

Prayer helps us to verbalize our need for God’s help.  Prayer in which we can begin to understand the depths of God’s love for us - that we can drive out temptation to make ourselves God and instead remember that God loves us completely, deeply, profoundly, totally.

Fasting helps us subdue impulsiveness

Fasting - where we do battle with the impulsive nature of our will.  Satan often tries to get us not through our logical nature - “Hey wouldn’t it be a great idea if you forgo eternity in communion with God for an Icecream cone?  No rather it is through our impulsive nature - I want, I am compelled, I desire…  Fasting helps to strengthen ourselves against our more impulsive desires - because at its heart most habitual sin is just that - we have become so comfortable in our sin that it is a habit and we are not even thinking about it any more…

Almsgiving is an imitation of Christ

Almsgiving - reminds us that everything we have been given is a gift from God, and so therefore we should share the gifts that God has given us with those in need. Almsgiving is a powerful weapon in Lent because not only does it help us to recognize God’s gifts, but it teaches us to imitate God by imitating His generosity - in sharing the gifts that God has given us..

Christ waits to be invited into your desert

Christ wants us to know that the desert is not a place that is foreign to Him, that is devoid of Him - that he is too embarrassed to go to.  No, rather God is compelled by His love for us to enter into the Desert for our conversion.

To bring about a flood of grace

And what of these Springs of Water that God desires to release into the Desert?  The springs of Water are best symbolized by the water of Baptism - in which God’s grace gives life and light to the world - in which we are reborn from Sinners into children of God - vessels of God’s grace welling up in us and through us into the world.  

See that God saves you this Lent

When we allow Christ into our Desert he brings his grace to cure the barrenness of Sin, and to bring about a new life of grace in our midst.  With all of the saints who were great sinners, the desert becomes a place of springs because it is the place where they can clearly see God’s love for them conquering sin and death in their lives.

St. Peter says in the second reading today…

Beloved:  Christ suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.  Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit… 

In which a few persons… were saved through water.  This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.  It is not a removal of dirt from the body but an appeal to God for a clear conscience,

Repent (Change your mind) and believe in the Gospel

A clear conscience through which God’s love can permeate our lives and through our lives transform the world.  That is why the Gospel today ends in this way - Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."  Christ has gone before us - it is up to us to follow Him…

Spiritual Slingshot

From a fuzzy dot to an incredible scene
In 2006 NASA launched the New Horizons Spacecraft with the mission to visit Pluto.  Last year that mission succeeded and we saw the very first pictures of that far-away planet. Before New Horizons, all we new of Pluto was that it was a fuzzy dot of light on the edge of the solar system.  After New Horizons flew past we had amazing pictures of the mountains and ice-fields of this far away place.

Gravity Slingshot
In order to get to Pluto in time New Horizons needed to perform a gravity slingshot around the planet Jupiter.  In doing this the spacecraft sped up by 9000 miles an hour and was able to make it to Pluto on time.

Spiritual Slingshots
In the Church year we have the opportunity to perform a Spiritual Slingshot around the two great feasts of the year where we have the chance for an intense spiritual encounter with God - Easter and Christmas.

• At Easter time we encounter the DEPTHS OF GOD'S LOVE in that He is willing to endure suffering and death in order to open up the way for us to have a relationship with God.  
• At Christmas we encounter the HUMILITY OF CHRIST - That he would give us himself in the gift of the flesh so that we could encounter him as a person and so be drawn into His love.  

These two encounters act like a gravity slingshot for our faith - and have the ability to send us with renewed energy on our way.  As a result of these encounters we understand God and ourselves in a much clearer way!

Baptism of the Lord
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, it is the end of our spiritual encounter with the Humility of Christ and it sends us on our way back out into ordinary time.  The challenge for us as Christians is "Are we going to allow this spiritual encounter with Christ to propel us into the New Year?"

Christ is Last
In the Gospel today Christ receives his Baptism from St. John the Baptist.  How he receives His Baptism is an important lesson for us.  If you notice - Christ is Baptized LAST - after everyone else.

Imagine being there...
Think about it this way - All the people are being baptized in the Jordan - and as each person enters into the river their sins are being washed away by the waters of the river - the waters become filled more and more with the sin of the repentant - while they walk away clean. Can you imagine being a sinner compelled by the preaching of John the Baptist and getting in line behind Christ waiting to be baptized - only to have Christ move you forward in the line?

In order to take our sin to Calvary 
Then after all of us have been cleansed by Baptism, Christ steps into the water and is Baptized.  It is as if He is entering into ALL of our sins and so accepting them into his humanity - to carry ALL of these sins with him until he reaches the completion of His mission and dies on the cross.  That is the profound encounter of today's feast.

[[PAUSE]]

What are the effects of the Sacrament Baptism?
For those of us who are Baptized, we benefit from Baptism in three ways:

• ·Baptism washes away our sins - Baptism has a tremendous power over Sin.  It does this because it is preparing us to receive the presence of the Holy Trinity.  This is why the practice of invoking the grace of our Baptism is particularly effective when combating the temptation to sin.
• Through Baptism the Holy Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit come and dwell in our souls.  This is another profound thought.  Just as the Trinity is revealed for the first time today in Scripture, when we are Baptized God unites Himself to our soul, and so is present with us throughout the rest of our life.  This is another profound thought to consider the next time that we are tempted with sin - we bear within our soul the gift of divine life.
• By the presence of the Holy Trinity we experience spiritual adoption by God - we become His sons and daughters.  We become those who manifest God's love to the world.

We respond by becoming students of Christ
The first response is that if I am a son or daughter of God then I am called to imitate in my life the life of the Son of God - Jesus.  The first step to imitating another is to learn about them.  This is what St. Paul says to Timothy in the second reading.  "Beloved:
The grace of God has appeared, (JESUS) saving all (BY DYING ON THE CROSS) and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly" in this age,

New Years Resolution
In our culture, the New Year is a time for resolutions, for making changes in our lives.  The first suggestion of the readings today is that we make a resolution to take advantage of this great and rare encounter with the Humility of Christ - so that we can spend this year becoming better students of Christ.

3 Ways to live our lives - Serious, Just and Devout
In his public ministry Christ taught three ways that we can live our lives

• ·Christ taught us to take life seriously - to understand that our life and our faith is serious - and not something to be passed over lightly
• Christ taught us to live justly - which means according to God's plan.  Where in our lives today are we living injustice - are we living in sin - these are areas we are called to change!
• Christ teaches us to live our lives devoutly - with a love that imitates the love of Christ.  This year is the year of Mercy, and we care called to witness that mercy to the world

Christ's Students become aware of their mission
As we become more and more like Christ this year, we become aware that like Christ - God is calling us to life with a mission - life with a purpose.  The first reading from the prophet Isaiah shows us the goal of our mission.

Isaiah - Those who are Baptized are God's servants
The opening lines of the first reading make it clear that God is addressing this first reading to those of us who have been Baptized.  He says "Thus says the LORD: Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one with whom I am pleased, upon whom I have put my spirit;"  Those who are Baptized are called to be the servants of God - we are the ones who have received God's spirit!

We must be gentle and humble because the world is broken
Those who have received God's spirit have a mission, a purpose which Isaiah shows to us when he says "he shall bring forth justice to the nations, not crying out, not shouting, not making his voice heard in the street.  a bruised reed he shall not break, and a smoldering wick he shall not quench,"

We are called to carry out our mission by being men and women of Mercy, Gentleness and Humility!

Missionaries of Mercy
As Baptized Christians we are the people who have been given the purpose of showing God's justice to the world.  We do this by living lives that imitate Christ.  In Christ we learn that God's justice is founded on His Mercy, and so we are called to be men and women of mercy in the world.

We live in the Coast lands - Pagan Territory
God has sent us into the coast lands to bear this witness.  For the Jews at the time of Isaiah, the coast lands are the areas of Israel where the people do not know who God is, and so they need a witness to God's ways.

In our world today the coast land would be the places of this country where there is a need for people to witness to God's love.  Colorado is one of those places.  According to a 2010 Pew Research survey 1 in 4 Coloradoan's is a person without faith - without and experience of the love of God.  It may come as a surprise to use that we live in a place that is so in need of this message - God teaches us that our mission is to be "a covenant of the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring out prisoners from confinement, and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness."

Mission of the New Evangelization is a mission of action
In 1993 St. Pope John Paul II came to Colorado and gave the Church of Denver the mission of being the heart of the New Evangelization - to bring the message of Christ's love and humility to the world.  We are called to live out this mission here in our state - not by words but by actions that show how we choose to live out our lives.

Baptism compels us to be witnesses to Love
This is the gift of Baptism - this is the gift to which we are invited to participate in.  The feast of the Baptism of the Lord is the feast in which we celebrate the gift of Baptism in our life.  Let us take advantage of this Spiritual encounter and allow it to propel us into this year with a deeper desire to share the message of Love with the world in darkness around us.