1st Sunday of Lent C - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

Away from the cities, out in the wilderness, far distant from the Temple. John the Baptist had been promising God’s immanent intervention - his long-awaited promise to bring change. John called for conversion.

Jesus was baptised by John, and immediately afterwards he had a remarkable religious experience: In the colourful language of the narrative, the heavens opened, the Spirit of God descended on him, and a voice addressed him proclaiming that he was God’s Son and was deeply loved by God.

Immediately afterwards Jesus left John and went further into the wilderness - alone.

When he eventually came forth, a long time afterwards, he was a changed man: he had a clear sense of mission; he engaged his world; and he was remarkably free from all fear.

Why did he go into the wilderness? Luke does not tell us much, other than that, as we heard in today’s Gospel reading, he was led there by the Spirit of God. What had happened to him there in the wilderness? No answer beyond that he was tempted.

Can we guess what else? That’s all we can do! He had been told by the voice he had heard in that experience after he was baptised that he was profoundly loved: He was indeed God’s beloved, and uniquely favoured. Perhaps he needed time alone to hear that... to let the truth reverberate into every corner of his being: his sense of who he was, his sense of the world in which he lived, his memories, his hopes and dreams, as well as his fears and insecurities.

He had to face his own inner world - from where other possibilities also emerged – what Luke called temptations : plausible possibilities, attractive alternatives. He faced himself. He chose God’s way. He accepted that he was indeed unconditionally beloved. He trusted the one who loved him. Confident and free, he engaged his world; and confronted the society that crushed and marginalised so many in the name of religion and also of peace.

It’s Lent: time for us to enter into our wilderness - those unexplored expanses of our own inner world. It’s time to let God’s word of Love, first spoken to us at our baptism, into every corner of our being, to trust the truth of ourselves as we learn to trust God’s Word to us – learning to believe God’s love that challenges every other voice of shame or fear or insecurity; letting go our need to control on the one hand and our death wish on the other.

Time spent in our wilderness alone with God has traditionally been called prayer. Other religious activities, too, are called prayer. This one is less explored, perhaps more frightening, certainly more transforming. The Jesus who came forth from the wilderness was so different from the one who went into it. That can be our experience, too, as we take the risk to surrender to love.