1st Sunday of Lent B - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2021

The Spirit that Jesus had just seen coming down on him at his baptism waited for Jesus to hear the voice from heaven assuring him that he was loved. It then immediately bundled him off out into the wilderness — and there Jesus stayed for forty days. During that time he was also tempted by the Satan, lived with the wild beasts, and had his needs met by the angels.

At least the wilderness was conveniently close, and gave him space — and the time he needed to come to terms with all that had just happened. It seems he found the space and time helpful — because in the Gospel account that unfolded, Mark frequently referred to Jesus going off to be alone and to connect undisturbed with the Father who loved him.

Time and space seem to be scarce commodities these days for most people, at least for us in this Western world. We find ourselves in a “Catch 22” situation. We need time and space to come to terms with the destructiveness of not giving ourselves enough of either. And here we confront another “Catch 22” situation. The myriad things that relentlessly consume our time and space were so often acquired in the hope that they might give us more time and space. A recent report published in the United States revealed that children there, aged between eight to eighteen, spend on average seven hours and twenty-eight minutes a day plugged in to some electronic device — an iPod or a television or the internet or a mobile phone. Factor in a little bit of time for sleeping and eating, and it does not leave all that much over. I ask myself what sort of example the youngsters get from the adults in their lives.

Sadly, most of us know the feeling! I wonder if Lent could provide the occasion for us to be a little more kind to ourselves — not to give ourselves less but to give ourselves more, more time and space, to do more interesting, more helpful, more healthy, even more holy, things than we are doing now, but which do not seem to be touching the spot. Could we find the courage, or perhaps the discipline, or even the sheer common sense, to bite the bullet, and deliberately, resolutely, set aside some time each day simply to be still, and even, like Jesus used to do, to gently connect — sometimes — with the God who loves us? Or haven’t we had the time to find out that loving is what God really insists on doing?

[Personally, I have found that to fit in some new practice, I need to firmly decide what current practice I shall choose to cease doing.]

The thrust of Lent is to expose ourselves to the “Good News” of God. Jesus realised that to find that out for ourselves, each of us needs to put a bomb under ourselves — [a better translation of the word used by Jesus than the anaemic “Repent” that we generally find]. The solution to our “Catch 22” quandary is not “rocket science”. Jesus said it is “close at hand”.