First Sunday of Lent

Readings: Genesis 9:8-15; Psalm 24; 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:12-15

In our first reading God makes a covenant with Noah and with all creation. After the destruction brought by God, furious with sinful humanity, God now promises that he will never again destroy creation by flood. The waters sent by God destroyed all that was sinful, and corrupt. What now remains is now at peace with God, it is now in friendship with him. The rainbow is now a symbol of this peace. It is a reminder to God and all creation of the covenant between them. In his epistle St Peter reminds us that Christ, innocent and sinless though he was, died for us, who are sinful. The waters which covered the earth at the time of Noah are see by Peter was a symbol of our baptism, which saves us and gives us new life in Christ. Like the waters of the flood, our baptismal waters destroy in us all that prevent us from being in close relationship with God.

In our Gospel reading we join Jesus just as he is leaving the waters of the Jordan, after his baptism, at which God proclaimed his identity. Jesus then goes to a lonely desert place, where he is tempted by the devil. There in that lonely place - where Mark tells us he was with the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him - we know from the other gospel accounts that Jesus had to resist evil, which offered him the whole world if he would turn away from his Father and instead worship the devil. Jesus was physically weak with hunger, for we are told he ate nothing for forty days, yet his spirit was strong as he resisted the false and empty promises of the devil. It is interesting that all the devil could offer to Jesus were things that belong to this world only. He could not offer Jesus life eternal, or happiness, or joy, or peace, say. The devil could not offer Jesus these things because they are not his to give. Only God can offer such things to us.

Jesus, by spending those forty days in spiritual conflict after his baptism, shows us, the baptised, how we must follow him. As we begin Lent let us follow Jesus, the human face and heart of God, with hearts unfettered by the things of this world. Let us walk these forty blessed days in his footsteps, resisting all that is wicked.