Church

Each Sunday, from February 21 to March 28, Prior Michael Brunner is offering a video series of Lenten Reflections available through the Portsmouth Institute. In his first reflection, Prior Michael turns our attention to the readings of the day, particularly Mark’s brief but intense focus on the temptation of Jesus in the desert. This leads, through the experience of temptation, to our very salvation. The readings also remind us of Noah, whose new life is like a new creation after the flood. They remind us through Saint Peter of our call to baptism. The Lenten experience is thus also about the church: those called to repentance, those preparing for baptism, those who come to form the new creation that is the church. Christ adds to John the Baptist's call to repent and be baptized: his baptism introduces the very kingdom of God. Prior Michael asks us to be attentive to “what the Spirit is doing and can do in our lives”, asking the Spirit to “renew the face of our Church.”

Since I was a little boy, I have been aware that the gospel reading for the first Sunday in Lent is the story of the temptation of Jesus by Satan. While I would like to say that I have this awareness because of deep spiritual instincts which I have had since childhood, during which time I meditated upon the gospel and carefully listened to the sermons preached by my pastor…. While I would very much like to say that, the truth is that I have this awareness because my Sunday missal had a particularly vivid picture for this Sunday, of Jesus and Satan having an animated conversation on top of the temple; at least Satan was pretty animated, and Jesus was quite composed and reverent, looking surprisingly clean and refreshed for having spent forty days in the desert.

Needless to say, that vivid picture was not drawn from the gospel we heard this morning. For the vivid details of Jesus’ temptation, we need to read the gospels of St. Luke or St. Matthew. Saint Mark is very, very sparing of details. In fact, he says so little about this event that it makes you wonder why he bothered to mention it at all. Since St. Mark was St. Peter’s secretary and accompanied Saints Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey, and in fact Mark founded the church in Alexandria, Egypt, we can assume he mentioned it for very good reasons. And the reasons we pick up from the other readings today, as well as by extrapolating from Mark’s story. When God makes a covenant with the earth through Noah that he will never again destroy it through flood, that is quite significant.

A covenant was a legal contract. A lawyer would tell us that it’s no big deal, because God can destroy life through fire, collision with a comet, or any other number of ways. That is true, of course, if that’s what God wanted to do…destroy it. But the story of Noah and the flood is the story of God’s re-creating the earth… putting everything back the way it was that day when the Spirit was hovering over the waters of chaos and God said let there be light. After Noah’s flood he again separated the land from the water and let the life from the ark resume filling up the earth. God was starting over, doing his part to rectify the problems caused by human sin. The covenant with Noah is God’s promise to work with what he created and make the best of it. God could promise this in confidence because he had a secret plan, to be revealed at the right time, to enter creation himself through his Son and make of it what he intended it to be at the beginning, a plan that would defy the enmity of Satan and all the mistakes of human beings. Through both Noah and Jesus Christ, God makes a new creation.

The letter of Saint Peter explains how Jesus in fact compensates for the all the sins, waywardness and weakness of human beings. We join and begin to participate in the body and work and resurrection of Jesus Christ through Baptism, in which we ourselves receive a new life in the Holy Spirit of God. St Peter tells us that the flood is a metaphor for Baptism, in which we each are created a second time; we are separated from the chaos of our craving ego-centered selves and reformed into inspired quasi-divine selves, destined to become like the God who became one of us. That is a pretty awesome destiny.

Prior Michael Brunner

Now from the Gospel of Mark, as well from Matthew and Luke, we learn that just before Jesus underwent his temptation, He was baptized himself. And the Holy Spirit visibly descended upon Jesus to “inspire”, initiate his public mission and ministry. That same Holy Spirit impelled him into the desert… the desolate and silent world around him… which Jesus must transform and redeem, and which world will fight him and try to distract him every step of the way.

It has certainly been true of my spiritual life that at every growth stage and crossroad there is a choice put in front of me, that tempts me to go off course. Not only does God test what he loves and creates, but Satan wishes to and tries through temptation to destroy whatever God wills and loves. And Jesus gets tempted too, just after his realization of who he is and what he must do to save us. Satan is the biggest of liars. He makes things that are evil look good to us… and that’s the lie, to say that what is bad is good. Now if we really recognized that the temptation was to do evil of course we wouldn’t do it. But, somehow, we think that what we are tempted to is good.

In the Gospel, since Jesus is just about to begin his public life, Satan wants to get him off track too and change the course of His life. Jesus, who is human just like us, feels the hunger of his human appetite; he’s been fasting for forty days, so Satan tells him: just say to a stone “turn into bread” and it would, just like God said let there be light…and there was. He tells Jesus “take the easy way.” It wouldn’t even be a sin for Jesus to use his power like that, but it would distract him. It would put him on the slippery slope. it would make him more likely to take other easy ways out in the future. Then Satan takes Jesus to Jerusalem and tells him: “Nothing and nobody can hurt you; angels are going to protect you, so you don’t have to take the normal human precautions when you preach. Don’t worry about the Romans and the Pharisees. You might just as well come marching into Jerusalem right now; when everybody sees how the angels catch you when you jump off the temple, they’ll all believe.” Again, that would be the easy way for Jesus, in which no one would have had their hearts changed; no one would have changed the way they lived just because Jesus could do impressive tricks. And finally the devil tempts Jesus with power. Satan does have power in the world and since Jesus came to establish God’s kingdom, Satan says: “You can do that in one second flat. I’ll give it all to you if you just worship me.” Now here’s a temptation not only to take the easy way…but to also reject God. And if Jesus had done that, he would not have been true to himself and we would not be here, members of the Catholic church.

Perhaps you can see that if Jesus had given in to one of the first two temptations, he would have been much more likely to give in to the last one, which would have totally destroyed God’s plan. I know many people who are quite comfortable believing in God and in subatomic particles that we only know from the tracks of their motions, yet who are loath to believe in the power of evil personified as Satan, despite all the tracks he leaves of his motion. Jesus passed his test in the desert and inspired with his own confidence and knowledge and love of his Father, he came back into the world to pick up where John left off. John the Baptist preached a Baptism of repentance, of turning away from sin and evil and doing good. Jesus preaches not only this – repent – but something new: believe the good news! The kingdom of God is at hand, which means right here and now, present and future, forever and ever. This is the time of fulfillment. This time – of Jesus’ human life given up for all of us – and the time of our own short individual human lives lived for God through the way we are called to love through Baptism. This is the time of our fulfillment.

Lent is the time when those preparing to be baptized at Easter receive their final instructions and formation to become new creations. It is also the time for us who have been baptized to follow the Spirit and retreat back into our deserts and be reformed in our faith, love and hope. By this work of fasting and prayer, we can in fact separate, that is distinguish, the work of our body from the work of our spirit to bring to our consciousness what the spirit is doing and can do in our lives. The good news of this story is the gospel. In Jesus Christ, we live work and believe as one. Jesus Christ reconciles us to one another and to the Father, and that is what he can do for all of us this Lent. He can make us all new creations. It is God’s plan, and it is no longer a secret.

Send forth your spirit, Lord, the same spirit that drove Jesus into the desert, and we shall be created again…and you shall… you will renew …the face of the earth, the face of our Church, our parishes and schools… and the face of my life.