“Sunday Reflection” is a regular feature, looking at the specific readings used in today’s Mass in Catholic parishes around the world. The reflection represents only my own point of view, intended to help prepare myself for the Lord’s day and perhaps spark a meaningful discussion. Previous Sunday Reflections from the main page can be found here.  For previous Green Room entries, click here.

This morning’s Gospel reading is Mark 1:12–15:

The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”

Here in Minnesota, we have a cold wind blowing outside that has put the Twin Cities back into a deep freeze. It’s been a relatively mild winter until now, but it’s -9 (F) outside, with a wind chill of -30. If we’re lucky, we’ll get above zero at some point today, but most of us will stay indoors somewhere, and put off tasks until warmer weather arrives. (At least that’s my plan.)

It seems somehow fitting to start our Lent in this manner. Lent is a time of preparation, anticipation, and repentance. We are called to be more reflective and less active — to take the time to search our lives and our hearts for where we fall short and to yearn for our Savior. Lent, and winter here in the upper Midwest, are times of yearning and reflection. In our modern age we work more on year-round industry than agriculture, but the cycle of the seasons still has its pull on our lives.

In that sense, Lent is a winter season. It reflects the state of the world before Christ’s arrival — where Israel had become spiritually fruitless, and everyone knew that something would change. The spiritual ground stopped producing; the last prophet had come two centuries before. Herod had restored temple worship, but it produced corruption and collaboration rather than a bounty for the Lord.

Thankfully, today’s Gospel is a sign of the spring to come, and for that matter, so is our first reading from Genesis. It comes from the end of Noah’s time in the ark, when the waters have parted. God explains to Noah that a new covenant has been made between Himself and all living creatures — that He will not destroy all life. As He provided salvation for Noah and his family, the Lord promises to temper nature to keep it from destroying all life.

Peter writes in his epistle that this was the prefiguration of baptism. Noah and his family “were saved through water. This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.”  The washing of baptism isn’t about physical cleanliness, but represents passing through water to salvation, Peter writes, in a similar way that Noah made the same journey. It allows the baptized to transcend nature and physical death, and live within a new covenant that brings eternal life and victory over death and sin.

This brings us to today’s Gospel, when Jesus emerges from his 40 days of temptation in the desert to proclaim the new covenant, and the fulfillment of salvation that began at the fall of Adam and Eve. Like Noah, Jesus has passed through water in His baptism. This time, though, Jesus will minister to us to prepare us for the final spring, in a sense — the period of education and formation that will not just prepare the disciples for eternal life, but all of us as well.

Jesus’ 40 days in the desert obviously parallels our Lent, but the real parallel is the next three years of His life. We usually focus on deliberate sacrifices during Lent, which almost always take the form of privation in solidarity with the poor. Perhaps, though, we should take our signal from what followed between the winter of Israel before Jesus’ coming and the spring of the Resurrection. Lent should be a time of renewal, of the same preparation and formation that Jesus gave us during his earthly ministry, recalled in the Gospel.

One of my favorite pastors often reminded us (and probably still does others to this day) that we are not a Lenten people, but an Easter people. We are not called to continuous and perpetual mourning over our sinful nature, but instead are called to hope in Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself made that clear, proclaiming that “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel,” as today’s reading reminds us. Jesus called the people of His time to formation, to preparation, and most of all to renewal — a restoration of our original, intended purpose in God’s design.

Repent, yes. But believe in the Good News, which is that Christ has come to save us all, bringing us through the waters of baptism to life everlasting. All we need to do is to put our trust and faith in Him, and prepare ourselves for the perpetual peace and joy of His spring.

The front page image is a mosaic in the Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco in Venice, Italy, depicting the temptations of Christ in the desert. The basilica’s nickname is “Chiesa d’Oro” (Church of Gold), a nickname that goes back to the 11th century, as does the present church itself.