THE GOOD NEWS IS A WORD HEARD
First Sunday in Lent Mark 1:12-15
Don Headley

Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus begins his mission in a wasteland, tempted at the urgings of the Spirit and ending in a reflection among wild animals. This de-scribes what happens to each of us as we accept new responsibilities.

The Gospel’s mes-sage is a "Good News". No matter how terrible the situation of John the Baptist’s imprisonment and death, nothing is impossible for a Gospel people. Jesus takes steps to begin his mis-sion and we are called to share it with him.

The "Good News" Jesus begins to an-nounce from a place among animals and an-gels changes old norms into a new attitude to-ward life. We are not merely looking for a conversion, but for a new way to live called God’s Reign. The Spirit conquers the world of hatred and fear.

Peter’s First Letter makes us part of the salvation process, not simply recipients of its benefits. We share the life-giving and hope-enhancing gifts of Christ's resurrection. Offering each other peace in Eucharist means to make it hap-pen as community. Has this registered in us? Do we have clear in-sights into our present and a vision of our fu-ture?

THE GOSPEL,...IS SUP-POSED TO BE ..."GOOD NEWS".

Noah opened his heart to an unknown fu-ture and, together with his children, sealed a pact with God for all the peoples of the earth. Can we accept that? Can we understand that cultures different from our own have other ways to express their grati-tude both for the life they have received from God and for its tran-scendence?

The world without faith is always in dan-ger of disappearing in floods that erase life. Floods destroy, but what really matters is what they allow us to build again as we start over, writing a new history as we create new cultures. What is the point of a gospel that tells us only how Rome or Antioch re-sponded to Jesus’ Resur-rection or the Gospel proclamation if Chris-tians in Albany Park cannot create and write their own responses here and now.

Holy Week will un-fold in the weekend be-tween the 9th and the 16th of April. We shall once again celebrate the saving events of Christ’s life that intimately touch our own. There will be Confirmations and Baptisms on Holy Saturday night and Easter Sunday. New people will declare their allegiance to the Church and to the Church’s mis-sion in our neighbor-hood. How will we re-ceive them and how will we share our mission and ministries with them? Over the Lenten weeks of preparation, we shall be asked in com-munity to accept them and use our criteria as Christians to judge their readiness for the sacra-ments, for their full par-ticipation in the Church. How well do we under-stand the norms out-lined by Peter, the char-acteristics of Noah’s al-liance and Christ’s chal-lenge of God’s Kingdom in order to apply them to these new members and to ourselves?

The four agendas in Christian life are: evangelization, ministe-rial service, stewardship and, finally, our racial and cultural commit-ment to one humanity.

Mark’s Gospel em-braces the cross as the sign of God’s presence in Christ’s mission, but also of Christ’s own in-timate revelation to the world. We know he is God’s Son because of the cross. It is his baptism of immersion in life; there is no other sign of God’s presence to him or to us. Yet, his mission is filled with the joys of the Kingdom, the trans-formation of all life through Jesus into the life of God, the life of Grace.

We are fortunate in this year of Mark also to use much of John’s Gospel. John tells us that only in the cross can we come face to face with God’s Glory, God’s total manifestation in our humanity which al-lows us the power to act with God’s own creative love. We shall look at these wonderful docu-ments of our faith and celebrate them over these Lenten days and in the mission.