First Sunday of Lent, Year B


Genesis 9:8–15

Psalm 25:4–5, 6–7, 8–9

1 Peter 3:18–22

Mark 1:12–15


The first Sunday of Lent always highlights the temptation of Jesus in the desert, which followed His Baptism at the Jordan by John. Year A (from the Gospel of Matthew) and Year C (from the Gospel of Luke) offer a dramatic description of three temptations.  

Year B (from the Gospel of Mark) offers no details about the nature of the temptations. Rather, it gives a simple statement: “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for 40 days, tempted by Satan.”

There is drama in the account, but it is subtle. It indicates that the Spirit “drove Jesus out into the desert.” This happens immediately after the Baptism where Jesus heard the Father’s affirmation: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.” The Son presented Himself for Baptism, the Father revealed His good pleasure in the Person of the Son, and now the Spirit drives the Son into the encounter that plunges Him into the full reality of humanity’s plight, temptation by Satan.

The only details given concerning the time in the desert are that both spiritual reality and material reality are involved in the encounter. “He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.” Thus, John’s Baptism opens the public ministry of Jesus, and this ministry is seen to include all of creation, visible and invisible.

The first proclamation of the Gospel proper comes after the imprisonment of John the Baptist. “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” God is with us. We are invited to respond to His Presence among us and to open our hearts to the Good News, the Gospel.

The Genesis account of Noah’s covenant, symbolized by the rainbow, and St. Peter’s words of hope, reminding us of the saving power of Baptism, highlight the nature of the Gospel. It is intended to touch all creation and to invite us into cooperation with the grace held out to us by Jesus Christ.

As we enter Lent, we begin our own spiritual journey into a desert. Done properly, Lent serves to expose our “beastly nature,” that is, how we are bound to this world and to sin, and to open our “spiritual capacity” as we are ministered to by the angels. We learn to see our limitations for what they are and we are “driven by the Spirit” to face them.

“This is the time of fulfillment.” “Fulfillment” is the accomplishment of what we have been told is going to happen and, at the same time, a “filling in” of whatever has been lacking in us, what we truly long to receive. God’s Kingdom is the acknowledgment in us that God is the Creator and the One Who has a plan for us. He is with us and is about to accomplish all that has been promised. “Repent and believe” is the call to open our minds and hearts to a new discovery, to a rearrangement of all that is.  

The Gospel is the truth of who God is, and of what He has accomplished for us in Jesus Christ, through His life, suffering, death and Resurrection. Lent serves as “an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him.” As we begin this journey, we put our trust in Jesus, who has faced temptation and who continues to proclaim the Gospel among us.