The Chaos and the Promise
(Free Version) The First Sunday in Lent: Genesis 9:8-17; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
This week’s readings can be found here.
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This Sunday marks the first Sunday of Lent, a season of reflection on our own dependence on God, on our brokenness, and on our own mortality. At Ash Wednesday, we have been reminded that we are going to die.
Each year during Lent we are reminded of the darkness, the need to embrace suffering and embrace our own limits. This Lent, my hope is that we would hear not only the necessity of the desert, but that we would know the hope of God’s presence even there.
Today, we are given stories of hope, we are told of what to hold on to in times of trial, temptation, and barrenness. All of our stories this week are about God’s promises. All of them are about a new path. And, all of them have something to do with water.
In our Old Testament reading (Genesis 9:8-17), we hear of creation in chaos due to the human movement against God’s creational purposes. God’s people have committed violence against themselves to the point that they are destroying one another and the world itself. Because of this, the sinful world is wiped away by water. God brought about a flood, a kind of de-creation, allowing the earth sink back into the waters of chaos from which it came. And, through it all, one family, and representatives of all creatures are saved. God’s mercy endures through human sin and through the waters. God makes a covenant, not only with his people, but with all of creation: a one-way promise that this will never happen again. No matter the extent of human sinfulness, even though the flood itself was as an act of mercy, God will never go that way again. The promise is shown to be true in the form of a rainbow, which will always serve as a reminder of it.
Our epistle reading (1 Peter 3:18-22) speaks to a church in suffering. In baptism, Peter says, they have participated in Christ’s death and resurrection. They have gone through the watery chaos, even though it feels like they are deep in it now. What about the principalities and powers which govern the world, and have done so since the days of Noah, trying to exert authority over God’s good creation? They know that their time is up. Because of this, the church can trust in God, living good lives of faith, hope, love, pointing to the One who sits at the right hand of the Father.
In our gospel reading (Mark 1:9-15), we hear of Jesus’s baptism, when he emerges on the other side of the watery chaos into which he has willingly stepped. The Father speaks: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” In Jesus, and because of Him, the same is said about us.
The Spirit descends and then leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted. The Spirit is relentless, like a wild, untamed bird—a dove or, as the ancient Celts described, a wild goose—always bringing about the healing and restoration of the world in the chaos and the wild places.
In the desert, the enemy tests the truth of the baptismal proclamation, trying to poke holes in the Father’s words. It is not that Jesus doubted the Father’s words, but we certainly do. We doubt his words about Jesus and His words about us. Yet, God does not leave us alone.
The other gospels tell us more about his temptation. Mark’s gospel simply says, “The angels attended him.” The Father does not leave him alone, and he does not leave us alone. This is consistent in scripture: God’s people are always led into desert places, and God is always with them.
May we learn to trust God, when we are tempted by counterfeit stories, when we are discouraged by the chaos of this world, and the sufferings we face. May we remember God’s promise to sustain us, and all of creation in spite of it all. May we remember that Christ has conquered death, that we have been baptized, and that the the kingdom of God has come near. May we always believe in that good news.