First Sunday in Lent: A NEW WAY OF BEING IN THE WORLD

 Scripture:  Mark 1:9-15 

Focus on the Word

Jesus entered into public life first by being baptized, secondly, by being led into the desert where He encounters Satan, thirdly, by living with the wild beasts, and then by being ministered to by angels.  He then speaks His first words, words that focus on the time being fulfilled, the kingdom of God being present, a call to repent and to believe in the Good News.  He then calls His first two disciples, fishermen, to whom He said, “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”  

Mark helps us to see Jesus for the first time, and observe what His life and ministry will look like. He humbles himself in baptism, and is affirmed by the Father in the words, “You are My beloved Son, in you I am well-pleased” (Mark 1:9, NASB). The first words out of His mouth have to do with “the kingdom of God” (Mark 1:25, NASB.)  

  We are a kingdom of God people.  We are invited into a relationship with God who draws us into a new way of being in the world.  In Lent we journey forward by looking inward, by exposing our lives to the ways and means of God.  

Today’s Prayer:

God, who sees all things, and who is the Ruler of all spirits and the Lord of all  flesh, who chose our Lord Jesus Christ and us through Him to be a peculiar people, grant to every soul that calls upon Your glorious and holy Name, faith, peace, patience, longsuffering, self-control, purity, and sobriety, to the well-pleasing of His Name, through our High Priest and Protector, Jesus Christ, by whom be to Him glory, and majesty, and power, and honor, both now and forevermore. AMEN. 

- Clement of Rome