"HE STAYED FORTY DAYS IN THE DESERT"

Homily for the First Sunday in Lent; Feb. 18th, 2018. Mark 1:12-15.

AIM:  By showing the spiritual strength gained by Jesus in the desert, to encourage the

           hearers in their Lenten prayer.

 

Every detail in this brief gospel reading is rich in biblical images, and rich too in spiritual significance. In Mark=s gospel Jesus= forty days in the desert begin immediately after the account of Jesus= baptism. As he emerges from the Jordan River, Jesus sees God=s Spirit descending on him Alike a dove@ (Mk 1:10). Now, Mark tells us, this same Spirit drives Jesus Aout into the desert.@

Jesus was experiencing one of life=s basic laws. It is this. Every ascent to the spiritual heights is followed by a descent into the dark valley. We long to live on life=s mountaintops, where we can sense God=s nearness and the reality of the spiritual world. It cannot be. It would not be good for us, even if such a thing were possible.

Even Jesus could not remain on the heights. The great spiritual experience of his baptism was followed at once by those forty days in the desert, Atempted by Satan,@ as Mark writes. We live by faith, not by sight. Faith may start on the mountaintop of some great spiritual experience. But faith is deepened and strengthened in those times in every life when God is silent, and seems to be absent B in the desert.

Jesus= forty days in the desert remind us of the forty years when Jesus= people, under Moses, wandered in the desert after their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Over those four decades that miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea grew ever more distant. Many who had experienced it died. And those who remained had ample opportunity to wonder: had it really happened? or was it all an illusion? Sick and tired of their desert existence, many of the people longed for a return to Athe good old days@ in Egypt – which of course were not good at all. St. Augustine says that we long for the “good old days” only because they are so long past that we have forgotten how horrible they were. Meanwhile a new generation was growing up who knew of God=s wonderful intervention in their parents= lives only by hearsay.  

Jesus= forty days in the desert were similar. He had ample opportunity to doubt the reality of his great spiritual experience at Jordan. Had the Spirit really descended on him like a dove? Had he really heard that voice from heaven, proclaiming him Amy beloved Son, on whom my favor rests@ (Mk 1:11)? Or was it all an illusion? Doubts such as these about his vocation and life=s work were surely part of that tempting by Satan of which we heard in the gospel reading.

Confronting those doubts was what gave Jesus his spiritual power. It was those forty days in the desert, tempted by Satan, which enabled him to say to rough fisherman shortly afterwards, ACome after me, and I will make you fishers of men@ (Mk 1:17) C and have them obey him on the spot. It was in the desert, Atempted by Satan [and] among wild beasts@ that Jesus became the man of whom we read later in this same chapter of Mark=s gospel: AThe people were spellbound by his teaching because he taught with authority,@ and not like the other religious teachers they knew. (1:22).

If you want to make something of the one life God has given you (and which of us does not); if you want to achieve something beyond the ordinary C then you must spent time in the desert. Show me someone who has left a mark on the world, in any age, in any field of endeavor: an artist, a thinker, a writer; a soldier, an entrepreneur, an explorer; a scientist, a prophet, a priest; a Francis of Assisi, a Mother Teresa, an Abraham Lincoln, a Martin Luther King, Mme. Curie, with her husband the discoverer of radium, the pioneering British nurse Florence Nightingale, Thomas Edison, the discoverer of the light bulb C and I will show you someone who has spent time in the desert. Silence, solitude, hard grinding toil; weeks, perhaps years in the desert of loneliness, of frustration and seeming failure, where each successive glimpse of the cool refreshing waters of achievement and success turns out to be a mirage: that is the experience of all the great women and men of our race. 

I mentioned Mother Teresa. Some of you may have seen the television film about her. In one scene she is sitting on an airplane, writing postcards, as she flies to one of her many foundations for the poorest of the poor. Off-screen a voice asks: AMother, where do you get your energy?@ Mother Teresa=s reply is as simple as it is unforgettable. AWe begin every day with Him, and we end every day with Him. That is the most beautiful thing.@

Are you beginning and ending the day with Jesus Christ? Perhaps you have grown slack. All of us do from time to time. Resolve this Lent to begin again.  Between now and Easter make time and space in your life for Jesus: not just at the beginning of the day and at the end, when you are tired and no longer able to concentrate. Decide to give Jesus time during the day. Turn off the radio and TV. As you drive your car, or stand in the checkout line while shopping, during your lunch hour or another pause a work: turn to God, be silent, pray the rosary, read a few verses of Scripture. Or just be still: lift up your heart and mind with a few words, or none at all, to the source of your being, to your Savior, your Lord, your best friend.

Follow Jesus= invitation to join him in the desert, to Acome with me ... to an out-of-the-way place and rest a little@ (Mk 6:31).  When you do that, you will discover Jesus= desert secret:

AThey who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength;

they shall mount up with eagles= wings;

they shall run and not grow weary;

they shall walk and not faint.@ (Is 40:31)