First Sunday in Lent; 18 February 2024; Lent 1B (RCL); Genesis 9:8-17; Psalm 25:1-9; 1 Peter 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15.
We always hear the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness on the First Sunday in Lent. Mark’s account is the shortest and most cryptic. All we’re told is that the Spirit drove him into the wilderness, and he was there for 40 days, tempted by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him. The forty days, of course, recalls the forty years that Israel wandered in the wilderness, but also Elijah’s journey to Horeb after his contest with the prophets of Ba’al (1 Kings 18-19).
Continue reading “Angels and wild beasts”