OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/02/2012

26/02/2012 – 1st. Sunday in Lent - B

26/02/2012 – 1st. Sunday in Lent - B

1Reading 34 Gn 9,8-15    Psalm 24    2Reading 1Pt 3,18-22   Gospel Mc 1, 12-15

Noah is at the center of the First and Second Reading. He is the image or the protype of man who speaks with God, or better who listens in the moment in which God himself wants to start a new humanity binding himself with it with a covenant. This covenant forsaw that God will not bring any distruction anymore with a punishment like that of the flood, even though humanity would be still in the midst of sin that make it rebellious. God shall always men, he shall love them with his same mercy. St. Peter picks the story of the flood to remind baptism. As the ark of Noah was sustained and saved by the same waters in which all the sinners died, such now the water of baptism saves in the power of the resurection of Jesus from the dead. This salvation is given to all those who receive baptism, who is seen by the apostle as “....”. And it’s Jesus who saves, he who “died once and for all for the sins, just for the unjust, to bring you back to God”. Now sinners have this possibility to take advantage: call upon salvation, uniting oneself with the Saviour who shall bring us back to the Father.

Then we meet with Jesus in the gospel text: here is he in the desert where he remains for forthy days. This period of the desert seems to be a preparation to all that he was to live afterwards: the proclamation accompanied by signs which will qualify him as the Messiah promised by the prophets, and the rejection, that will put him in a condition to bring to fulness the perfect love of God to men. Hence he prepare himself to give value, with his proper death, to that baptism in which sinners shall immerge to be saved.

In the desert Jesus moves in obedience to the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who has spoken through the prophets, who acts in history by preparing a new heart for humanity, who comes down and stays upon the servant of God who suffers and who offerrs himself to heal the evil consequences of all. In those forthy days the Spirit takes the place of the waters of the flood: Jesus immerses himself into it. Upon him weighs the evilness of men, who, risen shall be the guide on the way of their conversion. He is tempted by Satan: all the forces which have taken away of God men, now turn against him. Satan, the adversary, makes himself heard by Jesus, to deceive him, to distruct him from being an obedient son, to make him see that God is absent and without importance. Satan wants Jesus to act of his own initiative, as if God is far away and therefore not necessary to ask him and listen to him. He wants Jesus to be like us, who fall every day in this practical aetheism, without understanding it, as if it is our right. In those 40 days Jesus suffers all the enimity present in the world: the evangelist describes it with the images of “wild beasts”. These are unpredictable, scars, try to tear. The Son of God does not run away, but remains in this situation all the necessary time, 40 days, like the days of the Flood. And as Moses received the consolation of the dove, so Jesus receives the consolation of the angels who assures he is acceptable to God because of his obedience and for his preseverence.

Now he is ready to begin a new time of his life: overcoming all the trails, he can now proclaim the Gospel of God: he starts to speak with all of the God who has welcomed him in the desert and to whom he has offerred himself. He proclaims the good news that God is near to men, that God is ready to save them as he has saved Noah, whom God has sent to bring them back to know the Father. When John the Baptist was silenced, then Jesus, now not fearing men, starts to speak. His proclation is summerized by Mark with two news and two commands. The awaiting time is over, because the saving Messiah has arrived. The reign is ready, because the King has arrived! There change the way you think: if you are not to wait anymore, now you need to belong. The king is present: welcome him to be friends of God and therefore enjoy the fulness of hi love!

Inside the reign of God you are to be more sure than in Noah’’s Ark.

Let us begin the penitential exercise overcoming with Jesus all the stress of the world to do it on one’s own: lets us see to nurture our selves on the Word of God, making it in a way that it wont remain outside of us, but is seen in our action and words with our brothers.