1st Sunday of Lent: A Radical Beginning

At the beginning of Jesus ministry, the Holy Spirit led him into the desert and remained there for forty days. Jesus did not begin his ministry in Jerusalem, the seat of religious and political power of Israel, but in an unknown desert far from the city and from everyone’s reach. He did not rush into a frenzied activity building the Kingdom of God. Before anything else, Jesus retreated into the desert where he was confronted by the devil.

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him (Mark 1: 12 – 13).

The first reading from Genesis also tells us of a new beginning. After 40 days of flood (150 days according to Genesis 7:24), God wanted to begin anew God’s covenant with humanity through Noah and his family. God gives Noah the rainbow as a reassuring sign of his goodness: God will never again destroy everything with a flood.

Saint Peter in our Second Reading speaks of another beginning. Peter recalls the story of Noah and reinterpret it as an antecedent to baptism. Baptism is the beginning of the Christian journey. Peter tells his audience of newly baptized Christians about the meaning of their baptism,

This (story of Noah) 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, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him (1 Peter 3: 21-22).

After 40 days in the desert, Jesus begins proclaiming the good news. Jesus begins proclaiming the good news just after the bad news about John the Baptist’s arrest by Herod. This indicates that Jesus’ proclamation signals a new even radical beginning in the life of the people. Jesus’ proclamation of the good news is a radical departure from the sorrows and tribulations and ushers a new dawn for the people graced by God’s benevolence.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to proclaim the demands of the radical beginning of the good news of God’s Kingdom for the world today. We are to proclaim the good news of the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s kingdom despite all the bad news we hear daily in our world today–killings, war, sickness, poverty, corruption, disasters, death, and many others.

The radical beginning of the fulfillment of God’s kingdom proclaimed by Jesus demands a radical response. Thus, Jesus called for repentance: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Real repentance is not just to be sorry for the consequences of sin and evil but to hate and struggle against sin and evil itself.

Lent is a season that the church established as preparation for the renewal of our baptism. During Lent we begin anew our journey of fulfilling our baptism. In commemoration of the 40 days of Jesus’ retreat into the desert as well as the 40 years that the people of God spent wandering in the desert in preparation for its entry into the promised land, the church has allotted 40 days for our preparation for the renewal of our baptism.

As we prepare for the renewal of our baptism, let us ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into the desert. This does not mean that we have to look for the nearest desert and remain there during the whole Lenten season although some people may have planned to do something like this. The desert is anywhere and whenever we can stand alone before God. The desert is an inescapable dimension of the journey of our faith. It might be a church or a mountain or a garden or our room or any place where we can empty ourselves of obstacles towards God. It is a time when we can reflect on our faith in God and examine our values. So that in the emptiness of our hearts, God’s power and goodness becomes overwhelming. Thereafter, we become strengthened and ready to proclaim the good news just like Jesus after his desert time.

Our retreat into the desert during Lent, however, is not just a private spiritual exercise for individual spiritual nourishment. Lenten journey into the desert has a missionary goal. Lent is a preparation for the proclamation of the good news as we have seen in Jesus. Lent is a retreat for mission. We fast, we pray, we help the poor ultimately to proclaim the good news and build God’s kingdom.

Let us now ask the Holy Spirit to help us empty ourselves as we enter into our Lenten desert.

2nd Sunday of Advent: The Sign of St. John the Baptist

(For an audio version of this reflection, click here)

The Gospel of today’s 2nd Sunday of Advent is the opening of the gospel according to Mark: “The beginning of the Good News (euangelion) about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  Similar to our times, Mark was writing in the midst of persecution, suffering and uncertainty that his community was undergoing during that time. Despite all of these, Mark proclaimed the good news which is about Jesus Christ.  Mark daringly invited his people to change their perspectives and pin their hopes on Jesus Christ who is the good news. As in the times of Mark, the gospel today and in every liturgy is an invitation for us towards a fresh view of life, even a reversal of how we look at things; a new way of thinking, doing and living.

In this second Sunday of Advent, the liturgy presents us the epitome of this transforming and hopeful attitude in John the Baptist. In this advent season, we are invited by the church to take our cue from John the Baptist. What is the sign of John the Baptist?

Prophetic

John the Baptist’s was a prophet because he foreshadowed the coming of the messiah similar to Old Testament prophecies. But more than foreshadowing, he prepared the people for the coming of Jesus through repentance—a change of mind, hearts and guts. John the Baptist as a prophet was also not afraid to point out the evil deeds of people. That is why Herod shut him up in prison.

In this season of Advent, John the Baptist’ prophetic announcements reminds us that the more meaningful preparation for Christmas is the critical appraisal of our values, attitudes and deeds.  Advent is the season to examine how we have aligned our ways of thinking, doing and living in accordance with Jesus’ gospel.

Ascetic

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.

John the Baptist lifestyle speaks of severe asceticism and ritual purity. John the Baptist’ lifestyle highlights the penitential character of advent. That is why, just like Lent, the liturgical color of Advent is purple. In contrast to all the partying, eating and drinking common to this season, John the Baptist invites us to tame our desires and purify our hearts. He invites us not to get drowned with the over-commecialization and materialization of Christmas. Advent is a time to recognize that we are sinful. Our personal and social sins have hindered us from experiencing the wonder and joy of the coming of the Lord in our lives.

Desert

John the Baptist did not preach in the center of power—Jerusalem but in the “wilderness” or the desert. John the Baptist invited the people to leave their center of power and go to the desert. The desert always had a special significance in Scripture. It is a holy place, a place where God is specially to be found. It is also a place of struggle. It was in the desert that the Israelites spent 40 years on their way to the Promised Land. It was in the desert that Jesus had his tussle with the Evil One. It was in the desert that Jesus often went to pray and in the desert that he fed the people.

John the Baptist invites us during this Advent season to go to the desert. In the midst of all the noise and hectic schedule of the season, can we afford to withdraw in silence and spend some quality moments in prayer in order to fathom the greatest mystery of history—the incarnation of God into our lives and God’s own creation? This demands humility in order to learn how to bow down to the greatest wonder of God’s embrace and acceptance of our vulnerable and fragile situation.

Hope

John the Baptist gave the people hope by announcing the coming of the messiah in the midst of despair of the people.  In this season of Advent, despite the violence, oppression and falsehood, we cannot succumb to despair but continue to be relentless in hope. We must continue our unity and advocacy for truth, justice and wellbeing especially for the poor and the most abandoned of our society. The season of Advent strengthens our hope that justice, peace and righteousness will prevail over violence, terror and falsehood.

In this season of Advent, let us learn from John the Baptist, and listen to his voice from the wilderness.  Let us accept his invitation for a baptism of repentance. John the Baptist gives us the sure and certain route to “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” John the Baptist invites us during this advent season to a change in our perspectives and strengthens our hope in Jesus Christ who is the good news.

1st Sunday of Lent: Confronting the Enemy Within

When I was young. one of my most favorite song I always played on the guitar was a song called “A Horse with no Name”. “A Horse With No Name” was first sung by the American band, America in 1972 and it was originally titled, “Desert Song.” According to the band the song was a metaphor for escaping the drudgery of everyday life in the city.

The desert, as we experience it today, is the place where, we are stripped of all that normally nourishes and supports us. We are exposed to chaos, raw fear, and demons of every kind. In the desert we are made vulnerable to be overwhelmed by chaos and temptations of every kind. Ironically,  because  we are so stripped of everything we normally rely on, it can also be a privileged moment for grace. Why? Because all the defense mechanisms, support systems, and distractions that we normally surround ourselves with may also work to keep much of God’s grace at bay.

Thus, deserts have played a prominent part in the spirituality of all religions. Our own scriptures tell us that, before they could enter into the promised land, the Israelites had to first wander in the desert for forty years – letting themselves be led by God, undergoing many trials, and swallowing much impatience. A long period of uprooting and frustration preceded the prosperity of the promised land.

This is also what we hear in the Gospel of today’s 1st Sunday of Lent.  The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the desert where he remained there for forty days. In the desert Jesus was confronted by the devil.

The devil tempted Jesus to showcase his power and magically ease himself out of suffering. The devil first tempted Jesus to make bread out of stones to appease his hunger after forty days in the desert. Then the devil tempted Jesus to  jump from a pinnacle and rely on angels to break his fall. Finally, the devil tempted Jesus to worship him and forget all about God’s mission in return for all the kingdoms of the world.

As we begin this Lenten season, Jesus invites us to enter the desert. The desert is no longer just a physical, geographical thing. It is that place in the soul where we feel most alone, insubstantial, frightened, and fragile. It is that place where we go to face our demons, feel our smallness and yet be in a special intimacy with God, and prepare ourselves for the promised land. The enemy is not just outside but more importantly inside. The enemy is within us. The biggest battle we wage in this world is the battle to confront the enemy within.

Lent, therefore, is not so much physical, external activities but an inner spiritual struggle where we encounter God. In the desert of our soul we groan for God’s redemption. In the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer “Lead us not into temptation” becomes very real for us as we confront the temptations we have give-in our whole lives. We come face-to-face with our weaknesses and temptations, the tool of the devil. We admit that we are weak and cannot defeat the devil by our own efforts alone but by humbly and trustingly rely on God’s grace.

In these 40 days of the Lenten desert, let us return to our true selves formed in God’s grace. Like St. Paul, we place our lives in God’s grace, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So at the end of Lent we can, in a new freedom, recognise the joyful abundance of Easter’s new life.

 

 

 

1st Sunday of Lent: Confronting the Devil

 

Photo courtesy of Ted Aljbe, AFP

Sometimes, out of exasperation from the many evil around us and out of pain from so much suffering we are experiencing, we cry to God in protest: If you are a mighty God, why don’t you just remove all the suffering and hunger and make everyone full and prosperous? If you are a caring God why wont you defend and protect those who are oppressed and abused? Why wont you just display your power and eliminate all evil people in the world?

In today’s gospel of the first Sunday of Lent, the devil tempted Jesus to showcase his power and magically ease himself out of suffering. The devil first tempted Jesus to make bread out of stones to appease his hunger after forty days in the desert. Then the devil tempted Jesus to  jump from a pinnacle and rely on angels to break his fall. Finally, the devil tempted Jesus to worship him and forget all about God’s mission in return for all the kingdoms of the world.

The devil said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
command this stone to become bread.”

The devil said to him,
“I shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me.”

Then [the devil] led him to Jerusalem,
made him stand on the parapet of the temple, and said to him,
“If you are the Son of God,
throw yourself down from here

These temptations are not just the temptations that Jesus encountered in the desert before he began his ministry. These temptations represent the temptations that Israel, the chosen people of God, experienced in the desert (God’s testing of Israel and Israel’s testing of God) as told in the first reading (Deuteronomy 6 through 8) today.

When the devil challenges Jesus to demonstrate his divine sonship by commanding stones to turn into bread, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 8:3, “One does not live on bread alone”—which those who knew their Deuteronomy would complete with the words, “but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” When the devil offers Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if Jesus would worship him, Jesus paraphrases Deuteronomy 6:13, “You shall worship the Lord your God; him alone shall you serve.” When the devil shifts from temptations to arrogance to a temptation to presumption (if you are the Son of God, jump from the Temple parapet; God will surely protect you), Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:16, “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” It becomes clear here that Jesus is pictured as reliving the story of Israel in the wilderness, and getting it right. The parallel (and contrast) extends even to the talk of sonship: “So you must realize that the Lord, your God, disciplines you even as a man disciplines his son” (Deut 8:5).

We too are not immune to temptations. Temptations are a part of our daily living.  The world around us is full of temptations: We are seduced to buy what is not needed, to eat too much, to steal money and things from others, to cheat, to have power over others through sex, to be violent, to take vengeance and many others. Temptations tests the depth and strength of our faith. Temptations are not sins, according to our catechism. They can even serve as an opportunity to hone our skills, deepen and purify our faith by God’s grace. On the other hand, if we fall into them, we are led to sin. We are led to the devil and become separated from God, from others and from ourselves.

Contrary to what temptations will always tell us, neither bread nor magic will save us. It will be only, as St. Paul writes to the Romans in the second reading, by our entry into Christ’s own act of total trust and abandonment, believing in our hearts that therein we ourselves are raised from the dead and delivered.

In this season of Lent, Jesus invites us to confront and defeat evil. Lent is confronting the devil himself. The whole purpose of Lent is to defeat the devil. The goal of Lent is to share in Jesus’ resurrection, his victory over evil and death.

How do we do this? How do we come face-to-face with the devil?

Jesus invites us to enter into the desert.

In the history of the church, Lent has been associated with testing and trial period. In the Bible, the desert is the traditional ground where the people of God is tested. Before they could enter into the promised land, the Israelites had to first wander in the desert for forty years – letting themselves be led by God, undergoing many trials, and swallowing much impatience. A long period of uprooting and frustration preceded the prosperity of the promised land.

All the great spiritual masters and saints have undergone great trials and come face-to-face with the devil. They see the desert as the place where one is exposed to chaos, raw fear, and demons of every kind. In the desert we are exposed, body and soul, made vulnerable to be overwhelmed by chaos and temptations of every kind. But, precisely because we are so stripped of everything we normally rely on, this is also a privileged moment for grace. All the defense mechanisms, support systems, and distractions that we normally surround ourselves with so as to keep chaos and fear at bay work at the same time to keep much of God’s grace at bay.

By stripping ourselves of the things that superficially nourishes and supports us, we become aware of the essentials. We put aside the distraction and the abundance and focus on the essential. We empty ourselves so God can give us just what we need. Similarly, Lent calls us to focus on the essentials in the Christian life: stretching our roots into the life-giving, joy-giving water of Christ. Because it is God who gives us life; things don’t.

My photo of Dubai Desert

A growing trend in the past few years is minimalism. Its mantra is less is more or going back to basics. It’s about simple living, living with fewer material possessions. An example of this trend are those who chose to live in tiny houses which help them save money that they can use for other things that would truly make them happy.

Lent is the unloading of many spiritual baggages we have accumulated over the years. Lent reminds us once again to focus our time and energy and resources on what matters most. It means removing anything that keeps us from living the full, abundant life that Jesus came to give us which can be possessions, luxuries, addictions, sinful vices or enslaving mindsets. By stripping ourselves of many things and focusing on the essentials, Lent will bring us to a freedom from sin, a freedom to uncover our true selves, and a freedom to unleash our potentials in joyful service to God and to others.

This Lent we are invited to go into the desert. Desert can be literal or metaphorical. It can be a physical, geographical thing or a place in the soul. It can be a place in the soul where we feel most alone, insubstantial, frightened, and fragile. Mostly, it is within ourselves where we come face-to-face with our weaknesses and temptations, the tool of the devil. In the Lord’s Prayer, the prayer “Lead us not into temptation” becomes very real for us as we confront temptation every minute of our lives. We admit that we are weak and cannot defeat the devil by our own efforts alone but by humbly and trustingly rely on God’s grace.

In these 40 days in the desert, let us return to the bare essentials of God’s grace. Like St. Paul, let us place our lives in God’s grace, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” So at the end of Lent we can, in a new freedom, recognise the joyful abundance of Easter’s new life.

 

1st Sunday of Lent: Entering our Lenten Desert

At the beginning of Jesus ministry, the Holy Spirit led him into the desert and remained there for forty days. Jesus did not begin his ministry in Jerusalem, the seat of religious and political power of Israel, but in an unknown desert far from the city and from everyone’s reach. He did not rush into a frenzied activity building the Kingdom of God. Before anything else, Jesus retreated into the desert where he was confronted by the devil.

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert,
and he remained in the desert for forty days,
tempted by Satan.
He was among wild beasts,
and the angels ministered to him (Mark 1: 12 – 13).

The first reading from Genesis also tells us of a new beginning. After 40 days of flood (150 days according to Genesis 7:24), God wanted to begin anew God’s covenant with humanity through Noah and his family. God gives Noah the rainbow as a reassuring sign of his goodness: God will never again destroy everything with a flood.

Saint Peter in our Second Reading speaks of another beginning. Peter recalls the story of Noah and reinterpret it as an antecedent to baptism. Baptism is the beginning of the Christian journey. Peter tells his audience of newly baptized Christians about the meaning of their baptism,

This (story of Noah) 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, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him (1 Peter 3: 21-22).

After 40 days in the desert, Jesus begins proclaiming the good news. Jesus begins proclaiming the good news just after the bad news about John the Baptist’s arrest by Herod. This indicates that Jesus’ proclamation signals a new even radical beginning in the life of the people. Jesus’ proclamation of the good news is a radical departure from the sorrows and tribulations and ushers a new dawn for the people graced by God’s benevolence.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to proclaim the demands of the radical beginning of the good news of God’s Kingdom for the world today. We are to proclaim the good news of the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s kingdom despite all the bad news we hear daily in our world today–killings, war, sickness, poverty, corruption, disasters, death, and many others.

The radical beginning of the fulfillment of God’s kingdom proclaimed by Jesus demands a radical response. Thus, Jesus called for repentance: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.” Real repentance is not just to be sorry for the consequences of sin and evil but to hate and struggle against sin and evil itself.

Lent is a season that the church established as preparation for the renewal of our baptism. During Lent we begin anew our journey of fulfilling our baptism. In commemoration of the 40 days of Jesus’ retreat into the desert as well as the 40 years that the people of God spent wandering in the desert in preparation for its entry into the promised land, the church has allotted 40 days for our preparation for the renewal of our baptism.

As we prepare for the renewal of our baptism, let us ask the Holy Spirit to lead us into the desert. This does not mean that we have to look for the nearest desert and remain there during the whole Lenten season although some people may have planned to do something like this. The desert is anywhere and whenever we can stand alone before God. The desert is an inescapable dimension of the journey of our faith. It might be a church or a mountain or a garden or our room or any place where we can empty ourselves of obstacles towards God. It is a time when we can reflect on our faith in God and examine our values. So that in the emptiness of our hearts, God’s power and goodness becomes overwhelming. Thereafter, we become strengthened and ready to proclaim the good news just like Jesus after his desert time.

Our retreat into the desert during Lent, however, is not just a private spiritual exercise for individual spiritual nourishment. Lenten journey into the desert has a missionary goal. Lent is a preparation for the proclamation of the good news as we have seen in Jesus. Lent is a retreat for mission. We fast, we pray, we help the poor ultimately to proclaim the good news and build God’s kingdom.

Let us now ask the Holy Spirit to help us empty ourselves as we enter into our Lenten desert.