On Our Way to the Good News

Mark 1:9-15

Lent is a the 40-day journey which is a time of preparation for the baptism, a time of faith reflection. This also is a time of restraint from fun or disordered life. However, this season leads to the cross and finally to the resurrection. So we can call this season an essential part “on the way to the good news.”

Today’s readings provide us a chance to explore the covenant's significance both biblical time and now. I want to ask a question. What is the meaning of a covenant? A covenant is a promise made by God to the whole people of God or by one person to another. And most every covenant is accompanied by a sign. For example, the sign of the marriage covenant is a ring just as the covenant made by God to Noah has the sign of the  rainbow.

The story of Noah is with a sign of the rainbow.

This story tells us the steadfastness of God’s covenant with forgiveness, reconciliation and new beginnings. The symbol of this covenant, the rainbow means peace from God.

Some people say that the rainbow is a God’ bow without an arrow.

The rainbow is the symbol of peace between God and humankind. This peace preserves new life for the people. An important thing in this story is that it happened after a great trial of 40 day’s flood. This is the beginning of God’s saving covenant with humankind. Many, many years later God's everlasting covenant promise has come true when Jesus went to the cross that led to the new life of resurrection. 

In the cross event God says:  "I want you to live the new life of resurrection." This is the self-emptying and self-giving of Jesus in the midst of destructive greed of humankind. This is the good news that comes out of despair. Rather than taking from others we are here to give for others. This is the sign of peace. This is why we can say that the Cross is the sign of the Covenant that God makes complete God’s covenant with us all through Christ Jesus.

Today’s gospel reading speaks well of this God’s covenant of saving history. Jesus was baptized in the river Jordan.  Jesus passed the 40 days temptation in the desert. And he proclaims the good news that says: "The time has come…The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

Today’s Gospel reading of Jesus’ temptation during 40days in the desert shows us what’s behind fun, fame, and worldly success. In this story of Jesus, there is temptation on the way to the good news that he is going to proclaim. When we think of our past lives, we also experience lot of temptations when we are going to have something good. Perhaps this theme of temptation applies to all of us.

Temptation. None of us is too old or too young, too sophisticated or too naive, to escape the tempter. Temptation can lead us into all kinds of problems. Temptation is a very real fact in our lives and it brings all matters of complications.

However, it is good news that Jesus was victorious over the temptation. I wish it was that way for all of us. The key factor of this story is the presence of the Holy Spirit. Led by the Holy Spirit, Jesus won over the temptation.

Russian novelist Dostoyevsky made the temptation scene a centerpiece in his master work “The Brothers Karamazov. Ivan Karamazov calls the temptation the most stupendous miracle on earth: the miracle of restraint.

If he had yielded to the temptation, Jesus would have been a very popular figure. He would have became famous beyond dispute. Imagine for a moment stones turned to bread to feed the hungry. Imagine a spectacular descent from the pinnacle of the Temple as the crowds gasped in amazement and awe. Imagine political appeasement as the foundation of the Kingdom program rather than righteousness and justice.

According to Dostoyevsky's view, Satan offered three easy means of inciting belief: miracle, mystery, and authority. Focal point of this incident is that Christ refused all three. What then is the reality of temptation in our lives? None of us is beyond temptation. The reality of temptation in fact is absence or rejection of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

So it is foolish to treat temptation as no threat. It is unwise to think that he or she cannot fall by temptation. We are all susceptible at times. If we are not vulnerable in one area, we usually are in some other. This is the real crisis in our lives. This is the time we have to be alert.

With the Holy Spirit, Jesus won over the temptation. The good news through temptation, through trial is completion of God’s covenant. This covenant was realized through the self-giving event of cross that led to harmony, the new life of the resurrection. Without the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we cannot have it.

The new life is given through God’s self-giving and this is the seal of God’s covenant. In both stories of God’s covenant to the people the common factor is that God makes a covenant with people in the midst of or after a time of great trial. This is God’s history of everlasting grace This whole history of God from the rainbow to the cross and the resurrection is God’s grace.

And we are living in the time of God’s grace. As we see what is common in the Noah’s story and Jesus’ story: to experience God’s covenant, there always is a time of trial, a time of temptation.

When we confront t time of trial, or a time of temptation, we have to realize that it is a time to be joyful, and to expect that we will experience God’s covenant, God’s grace. God says in the midst of crisis in the midst of chaos:  I want you to have life abundantly.  I don't want you to separate, I don’t want you to fight each other; I want you to live the life of harmony!

This is the message of God’s new creation to make an order out of chaos. We are living in this promise of God’s new life. This is why we Christians are called  *God's Covenant People" the people of hope. This is what Jesus showed us and taught us to tell others about the special promise that God has made. 

God calls you and me to be part of that same promise. And we can live this promise!  When we have self-giving Jesus in our hearts, and try to follow him in our lives, we can live this promise..This is God’s blessing for us all in our daily lives. We are invited to this joyful blessed life. We are called to walk hand in hand with others, our friends, families and neighbours for this joy of life. In this journey towards the good news, God is with us always.

Thanks be to God!

Let us take a moment of silence and think of our past lives.

• When did you have a time of trial?
• When did you have a time of temptation?
• When did you experience God’s presence and work of the Holy Spirit?

And now let us think of God’s mission:

• Where/when did you sense the presence and power of the Spirit in your past and present church life within the church and outside the church?
• What is our vision as the members of DPUC
• What gifts can we celebrate?
• How can we celebrate this with our friends, families and relatives and our neighbours?

We are the people of God’s covenant and we are all ministers of God the faithful obedient servant of God and the followers of Jesus Christ our Lord. God is with us, Christ Jesus is with us and the Spirit is with us in our journey that actualizes the covenant, the promise made with God.

Let us Pray:  Loving God, we thank you for the signs you have given us  - as promises of your love. We thank you for the rainbow that tells us of your beauty and your promise to love us forever, and we thank you for the cross that tells us of your forgiveness and the promise of life of eternal peace.  Amen.