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The
Lenten Call to the Desert
Mark 1, 1-15 which includes the gospel for the first
Sunday of Lent
The prologue of this Gospel, like many other literary
units in Mark, takes the form of a sandwich. Two slices
of bread, “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus
Christ” in the first verse and “repent
and believe in the gospel” in the last verse,
bracket the unit. Verse 8 in the center contains the
meat of the sandwich: “I have baptized you with
water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” This
neatly divides the prologue into two parts: baptism
from the perspective of the First Covenant, then according
to the New Covenant. The word “desert” occurring
twice on each side of the sandwich is the landscape
upon which we are to understand baptism. The word “voice” occurring
once on each side of the sandwich is even more critical
to our understanding of baptism and indeed of the whole
Gospel of Mark. “Voice” defines the largest
sandwich of Mark’s literary structure (almost
the entire gospel). The other side is the “loud
voice” of Jesus when he gives up his Spirit,
rending the temple veil even as the heavens are broken
asunder when the Spirit descends upon Jesus. The center
of this great sandwich is the transfiguration where
the voice from the cloud says, “This is my beloved
Son. Listen to him.”
Each year we are called to the desert, to the wilderness,
the uncultivated land, the uncivilized land, the lawless
land.
The Voice of Moses leads us to exit from the comfortable
enterprises of our cultural captivity and hear in the
desert God’s saving view of how we should conduct
our lives, order our social institutions and transform
our culture. The Voice of Isaiah calls us to leave
the contented rituals of our solemn liturgies and answer
God’s demand to do justice to the poor and powerless
of our society. The Voice of John the Baptist summons
us out of the security of the church establishment
in Jerusalem to rediscover ourselves as the Kingdom
of God.
But most of all we follow Jesus to the desert. We
hear the Voice of God. “You are my beloved child.
You are graced. You are gifted. With my Spirit, I surround
you.”
We follow Jesus into the uncharted territory of the
future. For we have the power of the Gospel to completely
transform our church and our society. Like Jesus, God
has filled us with his Spirit and more gifts than we
could ever use.
And like Jesus, we meet Satan in the unexplored land
of possibilities. This Satan quotes scripture and tempts
us under the appearance of good. This Satan gives us
many good reasons for doing the lesser good, or even
doing nothing at all This Satan encourages us to fight
among ourselves about what is the greater good, and
encourages us to compete about who is doing the more
important things. So, like Jesus, we will need to fast,
pray, and center ourselves upon our mission.
As Christ, we learn to discern among the many spirits
in this new world. As Christ, we prepare to proclaim
the Gospel. As Christ, we recognize that we will have
to give our whole lives for the Kingdom. As God’s
anointed ones, we keep vigil this Lent: awaiting the
revelation of God’s will, eager to discover God’s
way, expecting the dawning of God’s Time. “Thy
Kingdom come! Thy will be done!” Jack Rakosky, VOTF
Cleveland
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