Lent

“And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my son, the beloved; with you I am well pleased’. And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness” Mark 1:11 - 12

“You are the beloved”. I think that is how it began for Jesus. I don’t know what hearing a voice from heaven would be like but it must have been disturbing. That is why Jesus was “driven” into the wilderness. What does being “the beloved” mean? Would it make any difference? Would anyone notice?

It was a disturbing event because it shattered the traditional view of things (in Mark’s gospel the heavens are “torn apart”). God was no longer safely enthroned “up there” or locked away in a majestic temple. In a very disturbing way, God was intimately present. Not just to the religious professionals who knew all the right words and rituals but intimately present to a “nobody” from no where like Jesus.

For me, that is what Lent is about. It means coming to terms with being the beloved of God. It is not a “thing” which I can own or possess. Being the beloved is being possessed by the very life of God. It is disturbing. It is not an experience that can be limited to the life, ministry and suffering of Jesus. God is intimately present to all of us.