Father Thomas Welbers' Homily	Jump back to Homily Index
First Sunday of Lent, March 9, 2003 Genesis 9:8-15 1 Peter 3:18-22 Mark 1:12-15	Listen to Audio

One of the benefits of having recently turned sixty is that I can claim “senior moments” as an excuse embarrassing lapses of memory or attention. Does God, who, after all, has lived for all eternity, ever have “senior moments”? As crazy as that question may seem, God’s own answer in the first reading we just heard, is “yes.”

Now, the story of Noah and the flood and the ark and all the animals and all that, is from the very first part of the Bible – everything before Abraham – that is neither history nor scientific textbook. We have to hold that this “pre-history” in the first part of Genesis is true, but not necessarily factual in the way that a science textbook or a newspaper report is expected to be factual. While the ancient story of Noah may be based on even more ancient myths and legends, it tells a significant truth about humanity and God, and their relation with each other.

After the great purifying punishment of the flood, God announces his intention to be faithful to his people, not to turn away from them, even if they turn away from him. And to ensure this, he even gave himself a reminder – as though anticipating he might at some future time forget in a “senior moment.” Notice that the text does not say that God gave the rainbow as a reminder to us. In it, God says, “When I bring clouds over the earth, and the bow appears in the clouds I will recall the covenant I have made between me and you and all living beings.” What better sign could we have of God’s intimate love? Whenever we see a rainbow, God is reminding himself of how much he loves us!

Of course that’s figurative, metaphorical, and even somewhat fanciful language, but the whole Bible is chock full of language like that. We can’t get to the divine side of God without first experiencing the human side of God. That’s the meaning of the incarnation – God the Son, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, becoming a man, becoming one of us.

How did this Son of God, Jesus Christ, begin his public presence among us? He went back to the water. His baptism in the Jordan River by John the Baptist recalled the purifying and destructive waters of the flood. And in coming through them, he immediately was driven into the desert by the Spirit to confront and resist the sources of evil, with whom he would soon be engaged in mortal conflict – a conflict in which ironically he would win ultimate victory by refusing to use the devil’s tactics of force and violence.

Emerging from both the water of life and death, and the desert of conflict, he has a message – to announce the new kingdom of God, the fulfillment of God’s covenant, the message that Good News is at hand.

If Jesus proclaimed Good News, and that’s the meaning of the word Gospel, what was the bad news? Throughout the Old Covenant, the one begun with Noah and repeated and continued through Abraham and Moses, God’s favor seemed to be limited to just one people, who continually misunderstood and limited it to themselves. In Jesus, God is now seen to be working throughout all of humanity. And God’s way is not prescribed by laws and rules, but by a new law that focuses on love alone – not as a requirement but as a response to the God who first loves us.

The word that Jesus uses to call us to believe this Good News, the word “repent,” does not simply mean “stop sinning.” Nor does it mean “do penance.” It means something far deeper and more basic than that. It means “change your innermost self,” “turn yourself around,” “be open to something completely new.”

If you stop and think about it, that’s scary. You’re going to start doing things that people won’t like. You’re going to start questioning things that you formerly took for granted – and other people did too. You’re going to start asking questions about justice and mercy, rather than profit and security. You’re going to start seeing the suffering of people that others want to ignore. You’re going to start trying to find ways of loving the unlovable, defending the vulnerable, suffering with the oppressed.
That kind of change of heart is not popular, and it got Jesus himself crucified. Yet, it is our Lenten journey to walk that road. To think seriously about what “repenting” and “believing in the Good News,” really mean – for ourselves, not to look at whether someone else is doing it.

Where to start? The sacrament of penance – confession – is the opportunity to let God shine the light of his grace deeply into ourselves, to struggle with the demons in our own heart, to see, identify, and by God’s grace root out those things that stand in the way of real change in our lives. Many additional opportunities are given during Lent to approach the sacrament of penance, to come to confession – they are listed in the bulletin. Especially if you have been away for a while, or find that your confession has become routine, ask God sincerely to reveal to you what in your life stands as an obstacle to his getting closer to you. That prayer – “Lord, show me what stands in the way of your love in my life, strengthen me to bring it before you in confession, and help me to root it out.” That prayer, made sincerely, will be answered without fail.

© Thomas Welbers, 2003