1 Sunday Lent, 26 February 2012, Mark 1:12-15

Crisis

A crisis is a time of opportunity.
When we are in the middle of a crisis, it is very difficult to see the opportunity that it presents. But, nonetheless, the wisdom goes: A crisis is a time of opportunity.

We are burnt out with 'crisis'.
Economic Crisis; Crisis in the Middle East; Crisis of Faith; Crisis of Vocations; Personal Crisis; Family Crisis.

A desert time is a time of opportunity.
When we go on retreat we consciously place ourselves in the way of a crisis encounter with God, a desert encounter with God. When something painful happens in our life, we may not have chosen it for ourselves and yet the painful, suffering moment can be an opportunity to encounter God in a way that I could not encounter God before the suffering became part of my life.

"The Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness ..."
Jesus does not voluntarily walk out into the crisis, wilderness, desert place. But he knows that he is beloved of God: "You are my beloved son; in you I am well pleased." If we know that God loves us – loves us so much that he would give his own Son for us – then like Jesus we can trust God, even as God leads us into a difficult or painful chapter on our life's journey.

Then: "Jesus entered Galilee, proclaiming the Good News of God"
The Son is affirmed in love, led into crisis, and in this way is prepared to proclaim the Good News of God. If we do not know that we are beloved of God, then we have not heard the Good News and we will not be able to share it with others: you cannot give what you have not got. If we realise that we are be-loved of God, then we cannot help but share this Good News with others. In fact, it will bubble up and overflow out of us!

The desert is a strengthening moment in the life of Jesus,
and so the desert is a strengthening moment in the life of the follower of Jesus. If we know that we are beloved, then we know that we can trust God. If we trust God then we have nothing to be afraid of. And without fear, we will be free to be evangelised, touched and changed by the Good News of God. And, immersed in the Good News we will become the best version of ourselves that God wishes us to be.

New Life

A crisis is a time of new life.
Sometimes we may wish that we didn't live at a time in Ireland when being a Christian and in particular being a Catholic could be so problematic. We could wish for a bygone era to come back. We may feel that we have the answers to where it all went wrong. Naturally, we would rather not enter into the wilderness at the urgings of the holy Spirit. It is a time of deep crisis in the Church. But a crisis is a sign that we are deeply be-loved of God. And a crisis is also a sign of hope for the future, but only if we enter into the crisis willingly and allow God to transform us into the people he wants us to be, into the New Evangelisation that is possible.

Lent is the time in the Church's liturgical year when we re-focus and re-prioritise.
We get an opportunity to be spiritually re-newed in our personal and communal commitment to Christ. The spiritual disciplines of Lent: Prayer, Fasting and Almsgiving, are all ways for us to consciously enter into the desert place that God has prepared for us because of his love for us in Christ Jesus.