First Lent

Mark 1: 12 – 15

At once, this same Spirit pushed Jesus out into the wild. For forty wilderness days and nights Jesus was tested by Satan. Wild animals were his companions, and the angels took care of him. After John was arrested, Jesus went to Galilee preaching the message of God: “Time’s up! God’s kingdom is here. Change your life and believe the message”.

Dorothy singing “Over the Rainbow” to Toto remains one of the most magical moments recorded on film. It touched something deep within many people’s hearts. In many ways, the only thing more delicate and ethereal than the colours of the rainbow in the still-glistening sky, its darkness being overcome by the bright light of the sun, is the look on a child’s face when he or she sees a rainbow for the first time. What is it about a rainbow that is so special for young and old alike?

How do we reconcile our beginning of this season of Lent – what is supposed to be an austere time of introspection, repentance, penance, and forgiveness – with the bright image of the rainbow?

It is most unlikely for Jesus to see a rainbow as he prays in the desert. Like Jesus, our 40 days in the Lenten desert will be filled with temptations and will beasts bent on drawing us away from the task of reconnecting ourselves with God. God promises that God’s loving presence will always be with us. God makes a covenant with us, and the rainbow is a sign of that promise. But when we go searching for rainbows we seldom find them. They seem, rather, to find us, to appear when we least expect them to.

This Lent, perhaps it would be better not to spend our time in the desert scanning the horizon. We might be looking in vain for what is already present in our own hearts.