Today’s gospel for the First Sunday of Lent, Mark 1:12-15, is the same gospel we heard four weeks ago. The words Jesus proclaims in this gospel, the first recorded words of his public ministry, are so profound we should embrace them every day. After spending forty days of temptation in the desert, Jesus enters Galilee preaching, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” The time is now, the kingdom of God is here now, turn your lives around now and believe, really BELIEVE, the Gospel (Good News) that God loves us right now.
Believing in the gospel message is not just an intellectual exercise; it is an exercise of the heart. Our Saviors’ call to repentance is a call for a radical change of heart (metanoia). The term metanoia comes from ancient Greek, meaning to change one's mind, i.e. to repent and have a spiritual conversion. Jesus invites us to repent so that we can experience fulfillment and enter into the Kingdom of God. This is what Lent is all about.
Beginning with Ash Wednesday and continuing until we celebrate the Great Easter Vigil, we are invited to turn away from all the things that separate us from the love of God. We are invited to unload all the things that drag us down. We are invited to open our hearts to God’s love. And when we achieve this, we are invited to renew our baptismal vows, to become that new person we promised to be and to assume our proper place in the kingdom of God. As St. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5: 17, “whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.”
“This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
God of mercy,
you give us the forty days of Lent
to help us become aware of the desert in our hearts.
Thank you for letting us come to you
with a life marked with the scars
of our own defeats and failures
and those caused by others.
Heal us, Lord, and forgive us,
make us whole and wholesome again.
Give us the strength of Jesus,
that we may be faithful to you
and live for one another.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen
