First Sunday of Lent B: February 22, 2024

We often live our lives in the future. My life will begin when I finish this job and can retire; when I finish school and graduate; when I get a new job; when the childrens tuitions are covered and retirement is funded; when I finish my physical therapy and.... Then my life will begin. We often avoid the life we have, and fail to see that life is now.

With John’s capture, Jesus life becomes public, in a sense he is on stage. In Marks concise gospel today, Jesus really confronting the beginning of his new life. He does this in a way that seems very strange to us: he begins it by confronting Satan. In going about it this way, Jesus comes to understand just what the Father is calling him to do and be. In a sense, we find ourselves facing the same question: how do we live our ‘imperfect’ lives to the fullest? How can it be the happiest and most meaningful? This is Jesus first proving ground, his putting his humanity at risk in order to bring it into right relationship with the Father.

Lent is our time to face Satan in the desert. It’s the time we realize that our lives begin now. It is our time to risk looking at our relationship with the Father. It is time to quite waiting for our lives to begin, and begin to live the life we have.

His disciples asked their master Rabbi Eliezer.“When should we repent?” “The day before we die,” said the Rabbi with an air of authority in his words. “But how we do know when we are going to die?” his disciples asked him again. “We do not know when we are going to die,” said the master. “That is all the more reason for us to repent of our sins always!” However, our repentance should not be meant exclusively as a preparation for our death. It should also be meant to help us live a life of holiness. Our repentance should lead to a change of heart and a radical renewal in our life.

This Lent is a time for finding out way out of our cynicism, our desert of self absorption, our wilderness of despair and hopelessness. These days before Easter are a time for deciding what we want our lives to be, what values we want to make the center of our lives, what we believe to be truly meaningful and purposeful for us. Now we risk our weakness and charity in our own Lenten fast so that the sacraments of Easter might be ever greater signs to us of Jesus’ victory.

Our lives begin now, just as Jesus’ did in the desert. How is our weak humanity going to be used by the Father? How can we make this Lenten season a new beginning? May we be willing to discover the presence of the Son in our lives. In the imperfection and weakness of our lives, we find God and make our life with him.