What do you do when faced with chaos?
In our first reading from Genesis this first Sunday of Lent, the waters of
the flood – the epitome of chaos – have just receded. Recall that God had sent the flood as a way
of destroying manifestations of evil in Creation; afterwards, God puts his bow in the clouds, an arc of color (arco iris) that guarantees that God will
never seek to destroy the earth again. Chaos
has been vanquished; the arc is a sign of new life.
In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is also confronted with chaos,
albeit of a very dry kind: subsequent to
his baptism, he is driven by the Spirit
into the desert – another locus of chaos.
Yet, in this case, when confronted by Satan, Jesus is sustained by
angels who minister to his needs. And
Jesus emerges victorious: having faced
the evil temptations of self-centeredness, he ready to proclaim the gospel of God.
Just as the ark carried Noah and his family through the storms and the chaos to safety, so we are carried by the Lord through the waters, through death in baptism, so that we can rise to safety, to new life. Our chaos is sin; our way through that chaos lies in following God’s paths, God’s ways of love and truth (Psalm 25). It is baptism, the First Letter of Peter tells us, that saves us now, bringing us to life in the Spirit. If we open our hearts to God every time we renew our baptismal vows, we too can conquer that chaos; if we allow God to lead us, we can conquer fear and death and be one with Christ, victorious. It is a worthy aspiration for our Lenten journey!
Just as the ark carried Noah and his family through the storms and the chaos to safety, so we are carried by the Lord through the waters, through death in baptism, so that we can rise to safety, to new life. Our chaos is sin; our way through that chaos lies in following God’s paths, God’s ways of love and truth (Psalm 25). It is baptism, the First Letter of Peter tells us, that saves us now, bringing us to life in the Spirit. If we open our hearts to God every time we renew our baptismal vows, we too can conquer that chaos; if we allow God to lead us, we can conquer fear and death and be one with Christ, victorious. It is a worthy aspiration for our Lenten journey!
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
Image source: Wordle.net
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