1st Sunday of Lent 2024
Genesis 9:8-15; 1Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:12-15
I have no wish to teach my collective grandmothers to suck eggs, so I won’t insult you by mentioning that, on the First Sunday of Lent, we always hear about the temptations of Jesus in the wilderness. What you may not have noticed however is that we rely on Matthew and Luke for details of the temptations: Mark’s account is much starker.
You probably recall the three temptations. There was the call to turn stones into bread: to make bodily appetites paramount. The order of the other two varies between Matthew and Luke but the essence is the same: throw yourself down from the Temple parapet to test God’s love and power, and worship Satan for the sake of earthly domination.
None of these details appears in Mark’s much briefer account, but there is still much that is important. First, there is the violence which is expressed in Jesus’ entry into the wilderness. Our present translation says that the Spirit DROVE Jesus OUT into the wilderness: the original Greek verb actually means “threw [Him] out”. Our Lord is forced into the wilderness whether He wants to go there or not, and it is the Holy Spirit which forces Him.
Let us consider our own situation for a moment. In Lent, we enter voluntarily into the wilderness with Jesus, associating ourselves with Him by our extra prayer, our self-denial, and our generosity to those in need—prayer, almsgiving and fasting as the Ash Wednesday Gospel puts it. Thus Lent is an important time as we allow the Holy Spirit to draw us closer to Jesus as we share in our own way in His experiences.
Yet there are other times when we find ourselves in the wilderness against our will. These are the times of suffering, whether physical or mental (or both); the times when we are literally beWILDERed. In those times, we need to draw comfort from the realisation that it is the Holy Spirit who has driven us there, has “thrown us out” as the same Spirit threw Jesus out. Jesus is there waiting for us, accompanying us through, and bringing us out at the other side if we have united our sufferings with His.
Mark continues with the bald statement that “He remained there for forty days and was tempted by Satan”. As you know, forty days, like forty years, is Biblespeak for a long time. We may find ourselves in our involuntary wilderness for a long time, and we may be tempted to despair, but Jesus will support us in our temptations.
We should bear in mind also Mark’s comment that “the angels looked after Him”. The angels will look after us too. We are never alone, and we shall not be alone in our wilderness, whether voluntary or involuntary: the Lord Himself will be with us, and His angels will keep us from harm.
There is one other statement by Mark, which is not included in either of the other accounts: “He was with the wild beasts”. What does that mean? Were the wild beasts hostile, or friendly? Was He in danger from them, or did they recognise Him as their Lord, and help to look after Him? Another possibility occurs to me: is Mark intimating that Our Lord was confronting the wild beasts which were part of His nature, as they are part of ours; the appetites and drives which are within us, which give us our energy, but which need to be tamed and controlled lest they run amok and cause havoc and not good?
Perhaps Mark is suggesting that this was a time for Jesus to confront Himself, to come to terms with His own human nature, to recognise those internal forces which He shared with very human being, and which can either benefit or harm us. Satan’s temptations would have formed part of this struggle to attain greater self-awareness, as they form part both of our Lenten journey and of the journey of life, as we strive to understand and to develop our humanity.
There is one word which our translation omits. It is the characteristically Markan word euthus , “at once” or “immediately”, and it comes at the beginning of Mark’s account. Jesus has just been baptised, and has received affirmation from the Father—“You are my Son, the Beloved, on whom my favour rests”—and IMMEDIATELY He is driven into the wilderness. Like Jesus, we too have no time for delay.
Our other Mass readings today point towards Baptism, the culmination of Lent for new Christians. God saves Noah by means of the Ark, which will subsequently be identified with the Church, the Ark of salvation; and the First Letter of St Peter sees the flood as representing Baptism, through which we are saved. All in all, we can say, using a nautical metaphor, that Lent is well under weigh.*
*A term derived from the concept of “weighing anchor”.
