Good News From the Desert - 1st Sunday in Lent
February 16, 2024 Faith
He must have sat down often to consider the state of the world around him. He must have worried about the civil and religious leadership he saw around him. He must have talked often about the Chief Priests, the Temple and its services. He must have done all that very often, just like we worry about the state of our world and the leadership on offer.
Doing this, we compare the world in which we live with the vision of a world to come. Speaking about injustice, we know about justice. Complaining about dishonesty, we imply honesty. Worrying about wars and violence, we dream about peace. Protesting about disicrimination and violence, we suggest a more equitable world.
We all do this because we are charged with a vision; we are full of hope. But we don't go any further, we don't move. We just talk about it all. We see as if blind, hear as if deaf, move as if paralysed. So did he, up to the moment he entered that desert for those forty long, very long days.
Full of the Spirit, he was challenging his own spirit. Full of visions, he was facing his own blindness. His ears ringing with the message, he was fighting his deafness. Asked to move, he had to overcome his lameness.
Photo by Finding Dan | Dan Grinwis on Unsplash
Mark says he was tempted, shocked and shaken, fighting with all that held him back, struggling with everything that kept him small, restricted and paralysed, fighting the devil itself.
He was going to ask us to do the same. He was going to invite us to follow him. He was going to show us what we would be able to do. But before turning to us, before inviting others, he himself first fought and overcame the indolence and immobility he wants us to overcome.
We can no longer just complain about others, forgetting about ourselves. We can no longer think that the world will change and our vision be fulfilled without ourselves being changed and moved.
That is what he learned in the desert, and that is why he came out of it - himself changed - to shout to us: "The time is ripe, the days are fulfilled. I overcame what holds you down. I could do it, you can do it. Change and believe this good news".
