First Sunday of Lent

The scriptures are all over the place today, taking us from the receding waters of a flood after “40 days and 40 nights” of rain to 40 days in a dry and barren wasteland; from an image of birds and animals, two by two, on Noah’s ark to the wilderness, where wild beasts roam freely; from God highlighting the heavens’ beauty with a rainbow to the specter of Satan tempting Jesus under the heat of the desert sun.

Sharp contrasts, these images, but not unknown in our own lives.  We live every day under the same skies, and though we may hope for rainbows, it often seems that if the flood waters of worries and illness aren’t rising all around us then the heart of problems and difficulties is beating down on us like a sun that never sets.  So, when a rainbow does come along it’s hard to miss its beauty or dismiss its mystery.

What we see in a rainbow is the sun’s light refracted through droplets of moisture.  No rain, no moisture?  No sun, no light?  No rainbow.  The rainbow is the place, the moment, where the flood and the sun’s light meet and without both, there is no meeting.  Noah’s rainbow didn’t appear until after rains had stopped, the flood had subsided and the sun burned bright again. 

But make no mistake about it.  The folks on the ark weren’t alone, abandoned in the flood.  God was with Noah and his family – in the rain – for 40 days and 40 nights.  God told Noah to build the ark precisely so he might survive the flood.  And make no mistake about it.  Jesus wasn’t alone in the desert, nor were wild beasts his only companions.  It was the Spirit who drew Jesus into the desert and sustained him through 40 days of heat, hunger, thirst, danger and temptation.

It’s not unusual for us to wonder, when times are really hard, “Where is God? Why has God forgotten me?”  Jesus himself, in the most difficult, painful, lonely moment of his life, cried out from the cross, “Why have you abandoned me?”  God never forgets us.  God never abandons us.  God is always with us, especially in the most difficult times, in our most painful and lonely times.

The rainbow comes in our hearts when the light and heat of our burdens are refracted through the moisture of our lives’ storms.  The rainbow is still the sign of the Lord’s covenant and his promise to be with us through the floods and in the deserts of our own days and nights.  Lent is a time to see more clearly how close is the Lord by our side and to be grateful for times past when he has guided us through our most difficult days.

The covenant of God’s love shines in a rainbow, yes, but the beauty and depth and truth of the Lord’s covenant, is never more beautifully revealed than in the bread and cup of this table.  In the Eucharist is the meal of the new covenant which nourishes us to be strong in stormy times and to persevere when the heat of troubles threatens us.  For here in this sacrament we are made one in communion with him whose love for us knows no bounds and has no end.

Paul A. Magnano

Pastor