Note: This was originally published earlier today at my Substack.

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

We begin Lent, a period of repentance and self-denial, by beginning the reading of St. Mark’s Gospel.  It is the shortest of the four, which quickly gets us to the cross, often using the urgent term “immediately.”  In a mere sixteen chapters, we make our way through the life and ministry of Jesus, reaching the crescendo of His resurrection from the dead.

But on this Ash Wednesday, St. Mark brings us to “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” with St. John the Baptist, “baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  And this is fitting, for we find ourselves in the wilderness of a fallen world, bearing the cross of sin, death, and the devil. We find ourselves returning to the dust from which Adam was made, just as God promised was the wages of sin (Gen 3:19, Rom 6:23).  We find ourselves remembering that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.  We find ourselves mourning our loved ones who have died, even as we know that we too are deteriorating.  We come to God, like King David, with broken spirits and contrite hearts (Ps 51:17) on account of our iniquities.

“And all of the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to [John] and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”  But John offered something more than a washing of the body as a sign of repentance.  John the Baptist preached the promise: “After me comes He who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

And just as John prophesied – the first prophet to bring the Word of God in four centuries – “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And “immediately” the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit descended “like a dove,” and the Father’s voice was heard, proclaiming Jesus to be His “beloved Son.”  And “immediately,” our Lord was driven “into the wilderness” to do battle with Satan: the one whose lies brought us to this point of dust and ashes, of sin and mortality. 

Jesus has defeated the devil at the cross.  Immediately, our dust gives way to baptismal water – not only a baptism of repentance, but a baptism of rescue, of salvation – as St. Mark will teach us in the last chapter of his Gospel (Mark 16:16), and as St. Peter will proclaim for us sons of Adam and daughters of Eve (1 Peter 3:21).

And like King David, ancestor of, and believer in, our Lord Jesus Christ – we pray for mercy (Ps 51:1), we pray for cleansing (Ps 51:7), and we pray for a renewal of joy in His salvation (Ps 51:12).  And it is in this confession and absolution from God Himself: the well-pleased Father, the Son whose blood rescues us, and the Holy Spirit into whom we are baptized, that we open our lips, and our mouths will declare His praise (Ps 51:15).

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.