FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT

February 17 / 18, 2024

Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, Warwick, R. I.

 

Genesis 9:8-17 

Psalm 25:1-9

I Peter 3:18-22

Mark 1:9-15

This forty-day season of Lent, which just began on Wednesday, originated in the early Church as a season of preparation for Holy Baptism at Easter. And one of the scriptural stories that the early Church’s bishops and catechists would use to explain the meaning of baptism to the candidates—or catechumens, as they were known—was that of the Great Flood and Noah’s Ark, mentioned repeatedly in today’s readings.

 

The Old Testament reading from Genesis recounts how, after the waters had subsided, God gave the rainbow as the sign of his covenant with all creation, including his promise never again to destroy the earth by water. Then, in the Epistle, Saint Peter writes that Holy Baptism corresponds to this: that is, to the salvation of those in the Ark—Noah and his family—along with all the animals.

 

Just as the original Deluge inundated and drowned a sinful world, making possible a new beginning of creation, so the waters of baptism wash away the stain of Original Sin, making us a new creation in Christ. As Saint Peter puts it: “not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience.”  In other words, our baptism has set us free from our burden of inherited guilt, and thus, like the Great Flood, marks the birth of a whole new world of possibilities.

 

Today’s reading from Saint Mark’s Gospel takes up this theme by describing our Lord’s baptism by John in the River Jordan as the beginning of his public ministry, after an interlude of forty days in the wilderness tempted by the devil. One implication is that because we’ve been baptized according to Christ’s example and command, we’ve also received the grace and strength necessary to resist temptation as he did.

 

Then Jesus comes into his homeland of Galilee, preaching the good news. The implication here is that just as the baptism of Jesus marks the beginning of his public ministry, so our baptism equips us with the spiritual gifts we need to serve God and exercise our ministries as Christians in the world.

But in the Epistle, Saint Peter makes a rather mysterious statement. After Jesus “suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous,” he went and made a proclamation to “the spirits in prison”—whom Peter identifies precisely as those who were drowned in the Great Flood. What is going on here?

 

Christian tradition calls this episode the “Harrowing of Hell.” Specifically, during the three days between his death and resurrection, while his body lay incorrupt in the tomb, Jesus went in spirit to the place of the departed spirits—the spirits of all those who’d ever lived from the world’s creation up until that time—to proclaim to them the good news of the salvation he’d won on the cross, and to set them free from their bondage to sin and death.

 

Some Eastern Orthodox icons depict this wonderful mystery. Having broken down the gates of Hell, Jesus raises Adam and Eve from their tombs, along with the Old Testament patriarchs, prophets, and kings. (Such an icon hangs on the wall of the Rector’s office, which I’ll be happy to show to anyone who’s interested.) The deeper symbolism here is that Christ extends his offer of salvation to all people everywhere, no matter where or when they lived and died, and regardless of whether or not they explicitly knew or accepted him in this life. Everyone remains free, of course, to accept or reject his offer of eternal life. But no-one is ever denied the choice.

 

Then, after his spirit returned to be reunited with his body in the Resurrection, Christ ascended to the right hand of his Father in heaven, as Peter says, “with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him”—just as, according to Mark, “the angels ministered to him” during his forty days in the wilderness.

 

From this dazzling kaleidoscope of scriptural themes and images, the words of our Lord ring out loud and clear: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” We can imagine Jesus saying those same words to us here and now, just as he did when he first came into Galilee, and again when he went and preached to the departed spirits in Hades: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 

 

Perhaps the message for us is that there’s no time like the present. Whatever we may have been intending to do but have been putting off, whatever we need to do to set things right with God and our neighbor, the time is now! And this Season of Lent affords us a wonderful opportunity to put right anything that we need to put right in our lives.

The good news is that we can do whatever we discern that God is calling us to do, because of the grace of our baptism. As I said at the beginning, this season of Lent originated as a period of preparation for Holy Baptism, culminating in the Renewal of Baptismal Vows, at the Great Vigil of Easter. One way of looking at the purpose of these forty days is as a time of preparing ourselves to reaffirm our faith at that pivotal moment in that wonderful liturgy.

 

Lent is a time to reflect on the gifts we received at our baptism, and to ask God to show us how he wants us to develop and use these gifts in our lives today. As the Psalmist sings: “Gracious and upright is the Lord, therefore he teaches sinners in his way; he guides the humble in doing right, and teaches his way to the lowly.” This Lenten season offers us the opportunity to humble ourselves and turn to Christ in repentance and humility, precisely so that he may teach us his ways and guide us in doing right.