Lent, Baptism, and Temptation: Insights from Genesis, First Peter and Mark's Gospel

Julie South [00:00:08]:
Welcome to your Catholic Corner. I'm your show host, Julie south. Your catholic corner helps Catholics spiritually prepare for each Sunday's mass. Starting midweek each week, you can listen to your catholic corner at your catholic corner. Today we're uncovering the biblical gems hidden in the books of Genesis. First Peter, and we continue with Mark's gospel. But this time we're going back a little bit. In time.

Julie South [00:00:40]:
We go back to verses twelve to 15, when we finished on last week at verse 40. In catholic speak, we're in the first week of Lent in year b. To kick off, we'll continue with this week's or last week's question of the week, listener question of the week, which is, what is Ash Wednesday? Which we have passed now? What is Lent, which we have just started? And then the question we're going to look at today is, where are these mentioned in the Bible? All great questions, and thank you. Remember that when two or more are gathered in Jesus'name like we are now with you and me, he is here with us. After today's question of the week, we'll look a bit more closely at your first reading from Genesis. We'll listen to today's three passages, and then I'll share my take on what I hear God saying to me through Genesis, Peter, and Mark. The Bible passages that we're reading from today are Genesis, chapter nine, verses eight through 18 one Peter, chapter three, verses 18 through 21, and Mark chapter one, verses twelve through 15.

Julie South [00:02:03]:
But before that, a quick word about your catholic corner, just in case this is your first time here, regardless of where you are on your spiritual journey.

Julie South [00:02:13]:
Whether you've only just heard of that.

Julie South [00:02:15]:
Man called Jesus, you're new to Catholicism or you're a cradle Catholic. My prayer is that your catholic corner will help bring God's word to life in your heart through insights, reflections, and practical applications that help deepen your relationship with God. Every Thursday we'll start preparing for Mass by uncovering the richness hidden in each Sunday's Bible readings, from Old Testament prophecies to gospel parables. I invite you to join me and the parishioners of the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Hamilton, New Zealand, sponsors of your catholic corner so that together we can hear God's word and echo. Samuel, speak, lord, your servant is listening. Now let's get back to today's show.

Julie South [00:03:04]:
Let's kick off with today's listener question, which is, where is Lent mentioned in the Bible? To answer this question, I've referred to Father Mike Schmidt. You may have heard or seen him around on YouTube or in various podcasts. He's actually answered this question already before online. So what I've done is I have captured that and got him to answer it here. I'll also put the YouTube link in today's show notes@yourcatholiccorner.com. If you'd like to look at the whole excerpt of his.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:03:59]:
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is ascension presents. So years ago, when I was first ordained a priest, I was living in, I don't know, duluth, hibbings, somewhere in northern Minnesota. And I would listen to christian radio to wake up. And now I know people say, I don't like christian music. I'd love christian music. That's great. Wonderful. I use it to wake up on the first lent, the first ash Wednesday.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:04:17]:
I remember waking up to the christian music saying, I can't wait for them to talk about Ash Wednesday. I can't wait for them to talk about, here's the beginning of Lent. Let's all do this, Christians and move forward to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at Easter. And the realized no one said anything like, in fact, there was no difference. And I remember thinking, oh, I didn't realize. Not all Christians commemorate or enter into Lent. I mean, some Lutherans do and some Methodists do. I think Methodists and Anglicans, Episcopalians, they do, but a lot of other denominations don't.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:04:49]:
And it was one of those signs of like, oh, here's the body, Christ divided. I didn't realize that people didn't do this. What I didn't expect and didn't anticipate would be that there was some animosity. I think sometimes when Catholics enter into Lent, some non catholic Christians can have a little bit of like, so what's this all about? Kind of a thing. Sometimes it's friendly and sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's like, oh, I just didn't know about that. And sometimes it's, hey, where's that in the Bible? Strictly speaking, Lent isn't in the Bible. But what you do have is you have 40 days.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:05:17]:
You have the number 40 throughout the whole Bible. That means training, testing, preparing. So you have the 40 days of the flood rains 40 days, 40 nights. You have the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years as they're being trained and tested and prepared to enter the promised land. You have Jesus himself, who goes into the wilderness for 40 days to do battle with the devil, to train, to be tested and to prepare for his ministry. And so as Christians, as followers of Christ, we have the same kind of thing. Well, if Jesus went and engaged in battle, training, testing, in this whole competition, this engagement, preparing, then we're going to do the same thing as followers of Christ. We're going to take 40 ish days, and we're going to set that aside for training and for testing and for preparing for something incredible like the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:06:03]:
And so we take that idea and apply it to our lives. Now, in the early church, they took that so seriously that all those who are going to get baptized at Easter would have this season leading up to Easter as that time of purification and enlightenment, a time of training and trial and preparing. And in that, one of the things they were doing is that's called Lent. Now, other christians saw this. People who were already baptized saw that and said, I want that too. I want to engage in this trial time. I want to engage in this time where I get to do battle against the world of flesh and the devil. And so they did.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:06:34]:
So that's kind of in a nutshell where Lent comes from, even though it's not strictly speaking in the Bible. You must celebrate, enter into this time of training, trial, testing and preparing. Now the people ask the question like, so where's ashes in the Bible? Well, they're kind of all over the place. Especially in the Old Testament, whenever someone was repenting of something, they were repented in dust and ashes or in sackcloth and ashes, ashes. Are that sign biblical? A biblical sign of interior repentance. Are they necessary? No, but are they helpful? Yes, just like a lot of stuff. Is it know, is it necessary to have a crossroad on your neck? No. Is it sometimes helpful for people?

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:07:15]:
Is it necessary to have a Jesus t shirt? No. Or a little decal in the back of your car? No. Is it sometimes helpful? Yes, because it helps me remember, okay. As I'm driving down the road, if I cut someone off, they might see that Jesus decal. And I'm not representing and not witnessing to Jesus. So is it necessary? Absolutely not. But is it helpful? Sometimes. Same thing with all the other stuff that we do in the church.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:07:34]:
Probably not necessary, some of them, but helpful. Hopefully all of them. I know people who have asked, what about the whole meat on Fridays where the Bible does it say, don't eat meat on Fridays? The Bible doesn't say, avoid meat on Fridays. What does it say? It says Jesus died on Friday. So Jesus'death on Friday means that that day is changed. We commemorate that day. We see that day as a day where we enter into the solemnity of Christ offering up himself to the father for our sins. So it's a day of kind of like mourning or a day of fasting.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:08:06]:
Whereas Sunday, the day he rose from the dead, we always see that as a day of feasting. It's a day of celebration. It's always, no matter what season of the year, no matter what time of the year it is, Sunday is always a day of feasting. It's always a day of celebrating the resurrection. And so think about this. Any given week becomes this, entering into the mystery of Jesus'death and his resurrection. And so in order to observe that and say, let's build it into our day, the church said, how about this? Meat is associated with feasting in most cultures. And since Friday is not a day of feasting, let's just say this, generally speaking, make it easy, right? It's not a difficult thing to avoid meat.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:08:42]:
We're going to say, no feasting on Fridays. If meat is associated with feasting, no eating meat on Fridays. If there's nothing bad with meat, we're not prohibiting certain foods like it says in the New Testament. No, we're just saying that on this day, hey, enter into the fact that this is a solemn day. It's a good day, good Friday. But it's a solemn day where we recognize Christ's sacrifice. We participate in it. People can explain it by saying that that's the day Jesus offered up his very flesh.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:09:07]:
So that day we don't eat flesh. Like, makes sense, too. Now someone will know. But, okay, so this whole lent thing, though, why do you do it? And I remember having some catholic friends say, well, it just helps me be a better person. Helps me kind of discipline myself, follow Jesus more closely, and then saying, okay, but being a better person is not going to get you to heaven. You're right. Jesus gets you to heaven. Right.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:09:30]:
Jesus is the one who makes heaven possible. The Holy Spirit is one who makes heaven actual, makes it actually not just possible, but real for us to enter into heaven. But as catholic Christians, we believe that when we cooperate with God's grace, when we do his will, that we're getting closer and closer to him, no matter what. That when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit and his actions in our lives and say yes to him and no to sin, the, we freely unite our sufferings to the sufferings of Jesus, that it does something. Yes, it's Jesus is the one who makes heaven possible. But you know this. In the scriptures, Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of God, but only those who do the will of my father in heaven. So we know that this is true.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:10:14]:
We know that, yes, doing disciplines of lent is not going to save anyone in the sense that it makes you now you're worth going to heaven. No, Jesus is the one who saves. Jesus is the one who saves. But our response is to do what is to do the will of the Father. So in that we say, okay, during this Lent I'm going to enter more deeply into prayer. I'm going to offer up more sacrifices in the sense of fasting and I'm going to enter into alms giving, help my brother and sister. Why? Because I believe that God is calling me to prayer, fasting and alms giving. I believe that his will is found in getting close to him, in listening to the church and obeying what the scripture says.

Fr Mike - Ascension Presents [00:10:51]:
I believe that when I say yes to these disciplines, I'm saying yes to him. In a certain sense, when it comes to entering into Lent, we don't do it because we think that it'll make us worthy of heaven. When we come to enter into Lent, we don't do it because we think that now I'll be saved because I gave up meat on Fridays. We do it because we believe it's a response to a loving father. And we're trying to respond with love to the God who is love from all of us here at essential presents. My name is Father Mike. God bless.

Julie South [00:11:33]:
Sunday, the first Sunday of Lent. As I said earlier, we're reading from Genesis first Peter and the gospel according to Mark. What is today's connecting theme? Simply, we have God's promises, referred to as covenants in the first two passages, to his people, to us of his promise of salvation. In Genesis, God makes a covenant with Noah after the flood. He promises never to destroy the earth again. The rainbow is set as a sign of this lasting promise by God of his lasting covenant. Yes, the flood waters bring judgment, but they're also a new the also bring a new clean beginning under God's pledge. In one Peter we have the comparison of Noah's salvation through water to baptism.

Julie South [00:12:26]:
Just as Noah's family was saved in the flood, your baptism now saves us believers. It represents an appeal to God for a clean conscience. As you probably know, being baptized or christened symbolises full identification and unification with Jesus'death, burial and his resurrection. It signifies a commitment by us to godly living. In Mark's gospel we have him describing Jesus. We have Mark describing Jesus'baptism, his temptation and the start of his ministry. Jesus'ministry Jesus'baptism Mary the beginning of his mission to bring God's kingdom to us. The baptism waters indicate Jesus'anointing by the Holy Spirit and thus full affirmation as God's son.

Julie South [00:13:20]:
Jesus then proclaims that the time has come for all peoples. That means you and me to repent and believe the good news. This is the beginning of a new era of salvation. The key theme is that water signifies a transition or a change from an old life to a new one under God's covenant and his promise. In Genesis, God's covenant is with humanity in one Peter. It's about personal salvation through baptism. Like Noah and in Mark, we witness the beginning of Jesus's saving ministry together on this first Sunday of Lent. These three Bible passages highlight God's ongoing plan of redemption in for us.

Julie South [00:14:22]:
Let's look at Genesis a bit more, in a bit more detail today. Genesis is from the Old Testament, the first passage that we're reading today, and it's also the first book of the Bible. Now, according to the US Catholic Bishops Conference website, the creation and flood stories, which is what happens, is recounted in Genesis. Chapters two through eleven are symbolic narratives. They shouldn't be classified strictly as either historical fact or imaginary myth because calling them myth implies falsity, while history means events that literally occurred. Symbolic narratives, therefore, is considered to be a more accurate term. In ancient times, stories like these addressed philosophical and theological questions. The writers adapted details to convey meaning rather than record facts.

Julie South [00:15:23]:
These narratives describe a pivotal era when God made decisions shaping humanity's destiny. Their purpose is explaining realities like, for example, God's justice and mercy, why people disobey God's laws. Nothing has changed then, has it? Or now has it? The nature of sexual attraction and marriage why humanity has diverse languages and cultures. Although they seem primitive and somewhat maybe even naive today, these short biblical narratives subtly express really profound and deep truths. They skillfully use plot and characters to help us humans today understand ourselves, our world, and our relationship with God. When we're reading from Genesis, it's important that we focus less on literal interpretations and more on what essential insights about life's mysteries these narratives creatively aim to communicate to us. These chapters matter most for their timeless spiritual messages, not their historical details. The creation and flood narratives reveal much about the author's cultural surroundings, so listen up.

Julie South [00:16:49]:
Their main goal, though, was to use rich imagery, which they do to uncover the deep wisdom that still enlightens and speaks to us today, which, of course, they achieve that as well, with this as the backdrop. Therefore, let's now read and pray the three Bible passages for the first Sunday in Lent. In year B, a reading from the book of Genesis, God spoke to Noah and his sons. See, I establish my covenant with you and with your descendants. After you also with every living creature to be found with you birds, cattle and every wild beast. With you. Everything that came out of the ark, everything that lives on the earth, I establish my covenant with you. No thing of flesh shall be swept away again by the waters of the flood.

Julie South [00:18:05]:
There shall be no flood to destroy the earth. Again God said, here is the sign of the covenant I make between myself and you and every living creature with your for all generations. I set my bow in the clouds and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I gather the clouds over the earth and the bow appears in the clouds, I will recall the covenant between myself and you and every living creature of every kind. And so the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all things of flesh. A reading from the first book of Peter. Christ himself, innocent though he was, died once for his sins, died for the guilty to lead us to God. In the body he was put to death.

Julie South [00:19:09]:
In the spirit he was raised to life. And in the spirit he went to preach to the spirits in prison. Now it was long ago when Noah was still building that ark which saved only a small group of eight people by water. And when God was still waiting patiently, that these spirits refused to believe that water is a type of the baptism which saves you now and which is not the washing off of the physical dirt, but a pledge made to God from a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ who has entered heaven and is at God's right hand now that he has made the angels and dominations and powers his subject. A reading from the gospel of Mark. The spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness and he remained there for 40 days and was tempted by Satan. He was with the wild beasts and the angels looked after him. After John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee.

Julie South [00:20:25]:
There the proclaimed the good news from God. The time has come, he said, and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent and believe the good news. What was God saying to you? Remember that we each hear God differently depending on what's going on in our lives at the time. There are some powerful metaphors in each of these passages. But let's not get too deep and meaningful. Let's keep it simple. So maybe, just maybe, we don't feel overburdened with doing heavy stuff, when really all God is asking us to do is glorify him.

Julie South [00:21:23]:
These are my thoughts and the reflections from today's Bible passages. In Genesis, we've got this passage describing God's covenant with Noah following the flood. As you probably picked up yourself, the primary metaphor here is the rainbow, which God sets as a sign of the covenant between him and all life on earth. Now, I'm not sure about you, but whenever I see a rainbow, it always has me thinking of God. It can serve as a metaphor for God's promise and his assurance that he won't destroy the world again with a flood. For me, rainbows symbolize awe, as in awe or wow, hope, peace, and the connection between heaven and earth. And then in first Peter. In this passage, the apostle Peter refers to the floods in Noah's time and compares it to baptism.

Julie South [00:22:22]:
The flood is used metaphorically to represent a form of judgment and salvation, just as baptism as being christened symbolizes the washing away of sins and the salvation of us believers through the resurrection of Jesus. The water of the flood therefore becomes a metaphor for both destruction and renewal. It's juxtaposed. It parallels the death and the resurrection theme central to our christian belief, to your christian belief, to my christian belief. So we have destruction and renewal. We have life and death and death and resurrection. And then in Mark's Gospel, we have this passage recounting Jesus being sent into the wilderness by the spirit, where he's tempted by the devil, by Satan. The wilderness is often used as a metaphor for a place of trial, of testing, and of spiritual preparation.

Julie South [00:23:23]:
That's why we have lent. That's why we're here now. Jesus'time in the wilderness, though, symbolizes a period of purification and his readiness, getting ready for his public ministry. Additionally, the mention of the wild beasts can be seen as a metaphor for danger and chaos. That could be where the world is right, full of danger and chaos over which we know. Jesus always shows mastery. It foreshadows his victory over sin and evil. So those are some of the metaphors at very top level.

Julie South [00:24:05]:
What did you hear? What was God saying to you? I hope you found all this interesting and helpful. I hope this podcast helps you prepare and maybe even understand, just a teeny, tiny, incy wincy, dinky bit better, the wonderful world of God and the catholic faith. Thank you for spending the last half an hour or so of your life with God, Peter, Mark, and me. I pray that each of these men, coupled with my history and context, has been able to make just a teeny tiny little bit of difference that God wishes for you today in our own way, in your life. Thank you for getting this far. Can I ask you to do me a favor, please? If you enjoyed today's show, can you please help me spread God's word about your catholic corner? All you have to do is tell three of your friends and family about this podcast so that they can hopefully benefit as well. Letting them know is really easy. Just invite them to visit yourcatholiccorner.com where they can subscribe and follow the show from there.

Julie South [00:25:26]:
It's free. I promise it doesn't cost a cent. Thank you. Wherever you are, I pray that God's glass of love overflows in your heart and your life, and that when you're ready, you're able to accept God's invitation to you to join him to share in Holy Communion this week at your local parish. And finally, I'd like to say thank you to the parishioners of the Cathedral of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Hamilton, New Zealand, who helped me bring this podcast to you today. This is Julie south signing off until next week. Peace be with you. God bless.