ILIZWI REFLECTIONS
Sunday, 18 February 2024***
1st Sunday of Lent
Genesis 9:8-15
Psalm 25:4-9
1 Peter 3:18-22
Mark 1:12-15
LENT IS A DESERT EXPERIENCE
“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” – Mk 1:12
The desert is a piece of land inhospitable to human habitation. A sandy or rocky place where rain hardly falls.
It is in this place, during the Exodus, that the 12 scattered tribes of Israel were formed into a nation, one people by God. It was in the desert they became the children of God by the covenant on Mt Sinai. The desert was therefore the birthplace of the Israelites.
Every time the Israelites became unfaithful or forgot about God, the prophets would suggest a return to the desert to rediscover their identity, their vocation, and their mission.
Hosea 2:14 “But look, I am going to seduce her and lead her into the desert and speak to her heart.”
In today’s gospel, the Spirit who had just come upon Jesus at Baptism (v.10) immediately drives him into the desert where he is tempted by Satan for all 40 days not only at the end.
For us Catholics, the season of Lent is our desert experience. It is a time when God seduces us away from the noisy world of social media, entertainment, and worries and leads us into the desert of your inner self so that He may speak to our hearts (Hos 2:14). It is a time of formation into that person God has always intended you to be.
What I find interesting in the Gospel of Mark is that he does not describe the 3 temptations of Jesus. He simply says “he was with wild beasts” (v.13). What are these beasts?
At creation God gave the human beings dominion over wild beasts (Gen 1:26). The snake in Gen 3 is described as the craftiest of all wild beasts. Adam and Eve fail to master the beast and they fall into sin.
In Gen 4:7 God describes sin to Cain as a beast, “sin is crouching at the door; its desires to dominate you, but you must master it.”
Each one of us has his or her own wild beasts, ready to spring up and consume us. Lent is the time we wedge war with each and every one of these beasts and master them – that which seeks to separate us from God’s will for us, our divine calling, our families, and our communities.
Mark also mentions the presence of angels ministering to Jesus in the desert. As much as we struggle with these ugly beasts, through Divine Providence, angels are also ministering to us. We are not alone in this spiritual battle.
Friends, Lent is much more than simply giving up a few favorite indulgences. It is an invitation for total renewal of our lives. Jesus proclaimed, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news” (Mk 1:15).
The Greek word, kairos, which is translated as simply as time in v.15 means more than that. It really means the opportune time, the favorable time, the promised time, and the right or proper time. It is the divinely allotted time or season.
My dear friend, this is your personal divinely allotted season to defeat and master the beasts within you. We can only do this if out of our busy schedules, we daily create a desert space and time to be alone with the Lord and his word. It is through the practice of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that we can master the beasts in our lives and families.
We were empowered for this through the waters of baptism which were prefigured in the flood of Noah in the 1st reading, as expressed by Peter in the 2nd reading. Allow yourself to be seduced into the desert, a place of your rebirth.
Have a fruitful desert experience
Fr. Ncube, SVD
ILIZWI BIBLICAL CENTRE
DIVINE WORD MISSIONARIES
PLUMTREE, ZIMBABWE 🇿🇼
SVD JAMBO KENTAN 