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Lent, 1st Sunday, Year B-2012
Readings: Gen 9:8-15: 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mk 1:9-15 (v 9-11 added to lectionary)
Beloved and Tested
In today’s gospel, immediately after his baptism by John, the Spirit led Jesus
into the desert. Jesus’ time in the wilderness is a model for what Lent can mean
for us. It was a time of testing for Jesus. Meditating of what happened to Jesus in
the wilderness might help us deal better with ways we ourselves are sometimes put
to the test. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus’s big test was whether he would remember that
at his baptism God had said to him: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am
well pleased.” We are sometimes tested by experiences that lead us to doubt
whether we are beloved of God and that God is well pleased with us. Lent calls us
to continually remember that we are truly loved by God despite the tests we face.
The episode in today’s gospel is often termed the “temptation.” This
description really suits the longer versions in Matthew and Luke better than
Mark’s version. The same Greek word means both “tempt” and “test.” In his very
short version of the story, Mark simply tells us that Jesus was in the wilderness for
forty days “tested” by Satan. Mark wants us to remember the earlier biblical
stories of the testing of the people of Israel in the desert.
Remember the people of Israel, whom God has set free from Egyptian
slavery. God told Moses “I have witnessed the affliction of my people and heard
their cry, I know well what they are suffering. So I will rescue them and lead them
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into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” But
following their liberation, where do they end up? In the Desert! They have no
food, much less milk and honey. The desert is a place of danger, where wild
beasts dwell. The desert was a place of testing for Israel. It drives them to ask: is
God really with us? Is this what God’s love for us really means—a desert, no
food, no place to even call home. Maybe slavery in Egypt wasn’t so bad after all.
Mark wants us to see that Jesus is being tested this way too. At his baptism
Jesus has just experienced the Spirit descend upon him and tell him that he is truly
God’s beloved. This is like God telling Moses that the people of Israel are his
beloved, that he will be with them always, and will lead them from slavery to
freedom. In the desert Israel is tested. Israel is tempted to say that their trust that
God really cared for them was a big mistake.
In Mark, Jesus is tested the same way. He is tempted to turn away from the
Spirit’s declaration that he is God’s beloved. Jesus is tempted to give up his trust
that God is truly with him. The wild beasts, the lack of food, and the conflict with
the power of evil present through Satan suggest to Jesus: God’s beloved?—forget
it. Jesus is put to the test by a situation that suggests he should give up on the idea
the he, and indeed all people, are deeply loved by God. The test is whether he will
remain faithful to the mission that lies ahead of him This mission is to bring us the
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message that he is God’s beloved, and that you, me, and all people are God’s
beloved too. The test is whether he will continue to hold fast to that mission.
In the face of this test, Mark tells us that despite all the barrenness and
dangers of the desert, God has in no way abandoned Jesus. Jesus remains God’s
beloved. God’s love is always with Jesus, even in the desert, where angels
“ministered to him.” In fact, the whole of Mark’s Gospel is framed by this phrase
“ministered to him.” At the close of the Gospel, after Jesus has been crucified,
Mary Magdalene and the other women who stood at the cross “ministered to him”
even as his body is laid in the tomb. Their ministering, like that of the angels in
the desert, is a living sign that God’s love never abandons Jesus. God’s love goes
with Jesus not only into the desert but even into death. And that love is more
powerful than any desert test. It is more powerful even than death.
The good news of our gospel today, then, is that whatever tests we face,
God’s ministering, comforting presence is with us at every moment, especially in
times of crisis. Jesus does not tell us we won’t experience bleak times of trial or of
frightening chaos. The good news is that God never abandons his beloved,
whether that is Jesus in the desert or facing death, or us in our own times of testing
and trial. Let’s thank God for that. Let us pray together that we will experience
the ministering love of God as we prepare for both Good Friday and Easter.
David Hollenbach, S.J.
St. Ignatius Church
February 25, 2012