The Kingdom is at Hand

                                              

The Kingdom is at Hand

First Sunday of Lent (Mk 1: 12 -15)

Feb. 18, 2018

Today is the first Sunday of Lent. Our Gospel reading tells us something about the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus. But before he began his public ministry, Jesus spent some forty days in the desert.  Our understanding of the desert brings to mind the image of a dry, arid and vast wasteland that is desolate, lonely and isolated. But surprisingly, Jesus was not alone in the desert. He was driven there by the Spirit. He was tempted there by the devil. He was there in the midst of wild beasts and was ministered to by angels also there in the desert.  Quite a crowd in such an isolated place!

The desert has long been known as the dwelling place of the devil. In Leviticus 16, in the ritual for the atonement of sins, a scapegoat, bearing all the sins of the people of Israel was driven into the desert for a certain Azazel. Azazel was another name for the devil who was believed to be roaming about in the desert. Jesus too in Matthew 12, speaks about an unclean spirit, who when taken out of a person’s body, seeks refuge in the desert.

However, it’s not only the evil one who lives in the desert. Surprisingly, God too dwells in the desert. For instance, Moses encountered Yahweh in the burning bush in the desert ( Exodus 3). God dwelt in Sinai, a mountain in the desert ( Exodus 20). It was also in the desert where God decided to dwell with his people in a portable tent (Exodus 40).

As we can see, it is in the desert where both the holy and the unholy encounter each other. It seems then, that the desert was the ancient battleground where good and evil fought for supremacy. We see this played out again when Jesus was in the desert. There the forces of good ( the Spirit, Jesus  and the angels) and the forces of evil ( Satan and the wild beasts) fought it out. Eventually of course, Jesus triumphs, and the angels then minister to him.

It is not surprising then, that the desert has been compared to the human soul. The human soul, like the desert, becomes a place where good and evil reside and do their battle. Just like the desert, the human soul is an attractive place for both good and evil to make their dwelling. Nevertheless, it is only man’s free will that can decide which of these two opposite forces would take a grip or an influence on his soul. When Jesus was tempted in the desert, he made it clear that the devil had no place in his life and that God, and God alone shall dwell in the innermost recesses of his soul and nothing else.

This is perhaps the reason why, when Jesus inaugurates the coming of the Kingdom, he asks us to repent. The coming of the kingdom simply means that there could only be one thing that could occupy our innermost being, and that is God alone. The call to repentance means the rejection of anything that isn’t God or of God. Repentance is the call to reject all the lies that the devil proposes to us and that we are to reserve no place for him in our hearts.

In the desert, Jesus made no room for the devil. When we make room for the devil, the struggle that rages in our innermost being becomes inevitable. This leaves us conflicted and troubled. What the Lord asks of us is for him to have an exclusive access to the innermost recesses of our soul, where he could make our hearts truly his dwelling place. There, when God alone dwells in the inner recesses of our hearts, could we hear him tell us:  

“ I will now persuade her and bring her to the desert and speak tenderly to her” (Hos 2:14).

The call to repentance is a call to embrace the Kingdom of God where he alone rules supreme. But the call to repentance is also a call to intimacy and tenderness from a God who wants to speak tenderly to us from the desert of our soul. Let us heed his words and make space in our hearts for him alone.  Amen.