Lent is our journey of 40 days (Kuwaresma) toward Easter. Its first Sunday starts us off with the bone-bare narration about Jesus’ sojourn in the desert and his inaugural victory over Satan and the summary of his call to the people (Mark 1:12-15).
The return of the Spirit
The end-time has begun: the Spirit of God has returned in and through Jesus—the Spirit that the people of old by their infidelity have quenched. John had announced that the one mightier than he who comes after him would be the one to baptize the people with the Spirit and so create a new people with new life (1:7-8). The Spirit descended on Jesus at His baptism in the Jordan and so anointed Him for His messianic mission of salvation (1:10-11). Immediately thereafter the Spirit drove Jesus into the desert for 40 days to recapitulate and rewrite the story of God’s people who for 40 years in the desert showed themselves so unfaithful.
Spirit-filled and Spirit-driven, Jesus was a necessary target for Satan, just as for the same reason Jesus must take on the enemy. The confrontation in the wilderness was just the launch of the permanent enmity between Jesus and the devil that in the rest of the gospel would be waged relentlessly. If in the wilderness of Sinai the Israelites with Moses underwent trials and temptations in the process of being molded into God’s people, now the new Israel in Jesus would come out of the desert in triumph. So, for 40 days and however long it takes to cross over to the “promised land,” Jesus the new Moses stood up to and faced down the enemy.
Fulfillment in Metanoia
The reign of God is already in Jesus and through Jesus at hand; his subsequent words and deeds reveal that God is truly already in the midst of the world. In exorcisms, healings, authoritative teaching, and later on the cross, Jesus would emerge victorious over Satan. This fundamental conflict with evil is stressed with the noted presence of wild animals, housing demons (Psalm 22:13-22; Isaiah 13:21-22), with Jesus out in the wilderness. But a note of anticipated victory is introduced by the apparent quiet of the subdued wild beasts in Jesus’ company; the era of primeval peace has dawned and paradise is for practical purposes restored (Isaiah 11:6-9). The other detail given during the initial confrontation with Satan refers to the angels ministering to Jesus, the man of God under divine protection (Psalm 91:11-13), recalling too how God was feeding Moses and the Israelites in the Sinai desert (Psalm 78:24-25) and the angels sustaining Elijah during his journey to the mountain of God (1 Kings 19:5-8).
In the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus in the wilderness successfully takes on Satan and the forces of evil and death, and inaugurates the reign of God in the world. But what Jesus has accomplished for us, requires from us an active participation. If God’s reign is already at hand and the fulfillment of divine promises is now, we are correspondingly called to a faith that acts, as the second half of the short gospel reading presents Jesus proclaiming the gospel of God. Repentance and belief in the gospel (Metanoia), the renewal and transformation of our life, demand decision and commitment.
Alálaong bagá, we have to take off the old fallen man in us, in order to put on the new man in Jesus Christ—not only every season of Lent but every day. We need to turn away from our old way of giving supremacy to selfish interests in dishonesty and injustice, so as to be able to measure up to the gospel values of truth and justice, service to others and obedience to God. Lent summons us to face down the forces of evil and live in harmony with all even the untamed, and open ourselves to the experience of divine love and holiness even in the wilderness of our own society.
Join me in meditating on the Word of God every Sunday, from 5 to 6 a.m. on DWIZ 882, or by audio streaming on www.dwiz882.com.