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| The Temptation of Christ -- Surikov |
The Revised Common Lectionary works through the first three
Gospels over a three year cycle, with John woven in during the Easter season
and other special times. This year (Year B) it is the turn of Mark, which makes for a
slightly odd Gospel on the first Sunday in Lent.
The
season of Lent is modeled on Jesus' retreat to the wilderness in
preparation for his three year
ministry, and the 'forty days' the Gospels say he spent there. For him
it was a time of both reflection and temptation -- reflection on
his divinely appointed task, and the temptation to prefer attractive but
inadequate ways of trying to accomplish it. For us, accordingly, Lent is
a time of study,
prayer, and self-denial, whose aim is to help us reflect on, and
confront, all the things that tempt
us away from the service of God.
Both
Matthew and Luke tell the story of Jesus’ temptation in
the wilderness at length. In this year, however, we have to make do with
a mere mention – a
sentence Mark squeezes in between his Baptism and the arrest of John.
Yet the
lessons for this Sunday have a link that the lessons in other years lack
–
namely their focus on water. The Old Testament lesson points us to the
water of Noah’s flood, while the Epistle expressly connects this with
the water of Baptism that figures in the Gospel.
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| Rainbow -- Turner |
But precisely what is the connection? We might think of it this way. In the story of Noah, God deals
with sin by a frightful deluge that
washes away all the sinful people . As subsequent
history shows, however, human sin doesn’t thereby become a thing of the
past. Yet, with the
sign of the rainbow, God nevertheless promises that such a thing will
never
happen again. At the Jordan, God uses water again, but in a more
subtle and spiritual way. The waters of Baptism signify death to the
sinful nature
of each one of us. But it is a death, paradoxically, that we must live
into. Traditionally, Lent is a time for newcomers to accept
this death, and for baptized Christians to reaffirm it.
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