I have a question for you older folk. Where were you when you heard President Kennedy had been assassinated? That November of 1963, I was working in a biochemistry lab at Oregon State University, when someone came running in with the news. I can well remember our crowding around a radio in the lab and listening in total disbelief. Most of us left the campus right afterwards. And as I wandered home, I could tell by the looks on the faces of the people I passed whether they, too, had heard the news. For the next four days, our lives were filled with the sound of muffled drums and the vision of a riderless horse.
Our times are, indeed, defined by the events which surround us. For those living today, the question from now on will be: where were you when you saw the bombs falling on Baghdad1? One month ago, I was in Los Angeles for a meeting at the University of Southern California. The first session had ended early so I had a chance to go back to my hotel room before the evening event. It was about 3:45 in the afternoon, Pacific time, when I saw this man on CNN saying there were bombs falling around him. And the screen went black. No longer do we merely hear about these events which define our lives; now we see them: live and personal.
This is the First Sunday in Lent. You may well ask what do these two “marking” events have to do with this penitential season? I believe they have a lot in common. I believe Lent is more than a time of fasting, of giving up the “extras” in life. It’s my belief Lent is a time of hope and of remembrance, a time of expectation of the coming of the risen Christ into the human heart. Lent is more than the forty days before Easter. And Easter is not a mere re-enactment of the Resurrection of Jesus the Lord.
Christ died and rose again some two-thousand years ago. He will not rise again on the last day of March. He is risen now and is with us here, right now. Lent is not a “preparation” for Easter so much as it is a renewed time of hope and expectation that he can be with me in a deeper way than he is right now.
The days following President Kennedy’s assassination were dark days in the life of this country. And yet, there was hope. Hope and expectation that this nation would survive a time of crisis. Today, there must also be hope – hope and expectation that the crisis in the Gulf will be resolved. That peace can come to the Middle East. Perhaps we can kindle that spark of hope in our hearts by reflecting for a few minutes upon the hope which is part of our Lenten journey.
Our gospel reading is the beginning for our inner journey of hope. Today, Jesus presents for us two announcements and a double challenge. His announcements are these: first, “… this is the time of fulfillment”. Second, “… the reign of God is at hand.” And the double challenge, “… reform your lives and believe in the Good News!”
“Reform your lives.” Some would prefer the old-fashioned word: “repent!” And there is nothing wrong with repentance, when it is understood to mean “change”. Change your ways so much that your old self will not be recognized. Become so “new” your friends and relations will wonder who is this magnificent stranger who has taken over your body. “And believe the good news!” Believe the Reign of God has already begun. Believe salvation is yours. Believe total peace and union with all humanity is possible.
Lent is a time to enter into this hope, into this good news which Jesus proclaimed in today’s gospel reading. And how do we do this? Each Friday during Lent, we celebrate the Stations of the Cross. As part of that ritual, we sing a very haunting refrain. The line is: ” … were you there when they crucified my Lord?” For many of us, the immediate answer would, of course, be “no”. But then we recall his words: what you do for the least of your brothers or sisters you do for the Father who created you, for the Son who came to you and for their Spirit who breaths within you. He is there when someone hurts, when someone cries, when someone dies.
Each Friday, at the Stations of the Cross, there is no “re-enactment” of the death of Christ. Rather, there is a remembrance: that, in his love for all of us, he was willing to give up his life. We are called to be part of a “remembrance” at each Eucharist we celebrate. If Lent has a theme, it is this: remembrance. Lent should be the embodiment, the lived experience, the remembrance of what his life, his teaching, his struggle, his suffering, his death – and, most importantly, his resurrection – were all about. Not some two -thousand years ago, but right now in 1991. Right now, in these days of hope and expectation.
The Jews to whom Jesus spoke knew about “remembrance”. Each year they celebrated Passover as a special act of remembrance. For Jews, each Passover partakes, even today, of the first Passover which Moses and the Israelites experienced. And each Eucharist we celebrate today partakes of the experience of the disciples, who were with Jesus when he broke the bread and drank the cup.
We speak of that remembrance in our new covenant with God. Yes, there have been many covenants made with him. In our first reading from the book of Genesis we heard about the original covenant which God made with humanity, in fact, with all of life. In that reading we heard the words of God to Noah: “I am now establishing my covenant with you and every living creature that was with you: all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals that were with you and came out of the ark.” To reinforce that this is more than an agreement between God and Noah, the Lord God continues: “ … this is the sign that I am giving for all ages to come, of the covenant between me and you and every living creature with you; I set my bow in the clouds to serve as a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
Jesus reaffirmed this covenant between God and all living creatures. Jesus did not come to bring salvation to the Hebrews alone, but to all gentiles as well. And all gentiles include Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists and Confucians – as well as those Jews who, at Antioch, became known as Christians.
In our second reading from the Letter of Peter, the first of all the disciples reminds us of the covenant with Noah and how the Lord God had the patience to wait for Noah to build the ark. Have you ever thought about that?! About the patience of God to wait until Noah and his family were ready. If God can have such patience, why do we find it so difficult?
Patience is another name for hope. Hope is the patient expectation God will provide us with what we need, or he will wait until we acquire it through our own hard work. Patience and hope are the virtues which Jesus had during those forty days in the wasteland. There in the wasteland, there in the desert, Jesus existed for forty days with, as Mark puts it: “… with the wild beasts”. Yet Mark also adds: “ … and angels waited on him.”
I fear many of us, as we wait in our own wasteland, with our own, personal “wild beasts,” fail to recognize the angels God sends to minister to us. The word, angel, as some of you may recall, means “messenger”. Does God not send messengers, bringers of the Good News, to each of us as we wait and we pray in our own deserts?
The time in the desert is my time for change, time for me to “re-form” my own life; not the life of someone else, but my own life. It is time for my hope and my expectation.
Here in Houston, during the season of Lent, it is difficult to see the change in seasons. When I lived up north during Lent, I had the opportunity to go to daily mass in the university chapel at the beginning of each day. On those first days after Ash Wednesday, I would struggle to get there in the dark and over the snow. But as Lent drew towards Easter, the mornings became sunlit, the birds began to sing and the buds started to open. Here in Houston, it is more difficult to see the change. Yet it is still possible to look at the hard shell surrounding the buds on some of our bare-branched trees and see the blossoms hidden there.
Is it not equally possible to look within the hard shell which may be surrounding your heart and see the hope residing there? A few moments ago, I asked where were you when JFK was assassinated; or where were you when the bombs first fell on Baghdad? My final question is this: where do you hope to be when the Light of Christ enkindles your heart?
First Sunday in Lent; February 17, 1991
Gn 9:8-15; 1 Pt 3:18-22; Mk 1:12-15
- This was, of course, in 1991 shortly after the start of the Gulf War, Desert Storm. Little did we realize that bombs dropping on Bagdad would re-occur a decade later.