Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, Year B

Desert Experience And Repentance 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, Year B

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church, Brooklyn Center, MN

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Jesus’ public ministry began from the desert. The Gospel of Mark says he was driven into the desert by the Spirit. Great biblical figures like Moses, Joseph, Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul etc. all spent time in the desert. But there is basically nothing in the desert. So, what is it about deserts? Desert appears regularly in the Bible. When God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, God did not bring them straight into the Promised Land. He took them on a journey first. And not just any journey, God took them into the desert for 40 years. What is the significance of desert? At first, the idea of spending all that time does not sound pretty at all. Why should anyone spend any time in the desert? It is a tough and hard place; it is lonely, and its stillness is deafening. But God had a plan. As the ancient Israelites wandered through the desert, God revealed himself to them more than ever before. As human beings, we avoid the discomfort in life, because we think we have legitimate reasons for doing so. When we find ourselves in a desert, in a dry, lonely and hard place, we lament, and everything seems lifeless or pointless. In extreme cases, even taking a single step out of the door appears to require an extreme amount of effort. Yet, the Bible does not present the desert as a hopeless place. God has used the desert and the wilderness to speak with his people. If you are in the middle of a desert, you are actually not alone. 

What’s the significance of the desert for us today? It was the French Mathematician, physicist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal, who gave us the best explanation. He said that most of us, most of the time, divert ourselves. We distract ourselves from attending to the great questions about God, about life, about the meaning of death, about sin and about grace and all the great questions. To avoid thinking about those realities, we engage in diversions. Paschal himself, by the way, loved to gamble. He was a brilliant man; he spent way too much of his life in these sort of idle games. And most of us do it too. We distract ourselves from these great questions. So, the desert is a place of no distractions. It is a place where we get down to spiritual basics, where nothing can divert and distract us from attending to the great questions. We are often worried about our jobs, family, sports, entertainment, traveling, politics, power, health etc. Those are important, but they can be our ultimate distractions. In our Gospel for today, Jesus our Savior invites us to go into the desert, meet him there and ask these fundamental questions.  

After his desert experience which includes his temptation, Jesus appears in Galilee. The first message on his lips is: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel.” Today, the call to repentance has been given a bad name. People frown at its mention and associate it with the brand of Christianity that is fanatical or judgmental or angry. But the proper understanding of repentance shows it is nothing to be afraid of. Repentance is not a bad word. The word “repent” in Greek is “metanoia” which literally means “Go beyond the mind you have.” What’s your view about power, wealth, honor and pleasure? If you consider any of these as your ultimate good and goal, during this season of Lent, you must go beyond the mind you have about them. Change your way of thinking and your way of seeing. How do you assess the world? What is your priority? If your priority is not God, change your mind; change your mentality; change your perspective. 

Why is the changing of our minds so important? Jesus says it is because “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” Lent is a penitential period when we come to grip with our limitations, sins and attachments in order to prepare for real communion with God. It is a season for refocusing on the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we will be ready to embrace the good news of the Resurrection. But why this emphasis on suffering? Who wants it? It is because Jesus saved us through an act of suffering. In his own person, he bore the weight of our sin and died for us on the cross, where suffering and love met. As we begin the Lenten season, let us resolve to focus on Christ’s suffering, and to unite our own suffering— through fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and reflection on the Stations of the Cross— with the suffering members of the Church. It is not the destination but the journey that will ultimately transform us and lead us to the destination.