CTRL + ALT + DELETE
Genesis 9: 8-15; 1 Peter 3: 18-22; Mark 1: 12-15
Well, here we are on the First Sunday of Lent. Lent always seems to sneak up on us and catch us by surprise, doesn’t it? No matter if Ash Wednesday is early or late, we always seem to have the same reaction: “Oh my goodness! I can’t believe it’s Lent already!” While Christmas is something that we eagerly anticipate, I can’t ever remember hearing anyone saying: “Oh man, I can’t wait for Lent! Prayer, fasting, abstinence, sacrifice, mortification of the body! YES!!!”
The word lent comes from the Latin word lento, which means “slow down.” And maybe that word fits most, or at least some of us this morning. We’ve slowed down, perhaps even come to a standstill. Physically, because of the cold, the snow, less sunlight, our lives have become more sedentary, less active. We don’t want to go out and face the cold so we stay in. And all the activities that we normally enjoy - outdoor sports like golf, tennis, soccer, baseball, and even some of the work that we enjoy, like gardening, go on a temporary hiatus until the warmth of the spring and summer sudden tell us it’s safe to come out of our winter hibernation. And, other than big events like Christmas, New Year’s and Super Bowl Sunday, even our social lives take a hit, as we prefer a quiet night by the fireplace than the cold trek through the frozen tundra to visit relatives and friends.
And unfortunately, our spiritual lives can also slow down or come to a standstill as well, not just in winter but in any season of our lives. The fervor that coincided with the reception of a Sacrament, a retreat experience, a moving homily or a prayer answered can quickly be cooled off by the problems and tragedies that confront us, or simply (and most often) through lack of effort – we simply become too busy, too tired, too overwhelmed, too distracted, too bored to do what’s necessary to maintain our spiritual lives (or more importantly, for it to grow deeper). And so, our spiritual lives slow down, get stuck.
I know what to do when my computer slows down, freezes or gets stuck. It needs to reboot. And I know I can do that by hitting three keys on my computer simultaneously: CTRL + ALT + DELETE. And maybe Lent is the time for us to do the same thing - not with our computers but with our lives.
What do I mean? During Lent, we’re asked to CONTROL . . . to control ourselves, to control our appetites, to control our habits, to control the things we over-indulge in, to control those things that we like and which give us some degree of pleasure. And so, Lent is a time of SACRIFICE, of giving up . . . as a Church, giving up meat on Fridays . . . but as individuals, giving up those things that might cost us a little bit – not money, but pleasure: the cookies, the candy, the chips, the soda, Facebook or Instagram, online gaming, the alcohol, the cigarettes, the drugs, the gossip, the foul language, the porno. By its nature, a sacrifice is not meant to be easy; it hurts a little bit. Why sacrifice? Well we only need to look at the cross for the answer to that one. Jesus sacrificed his life for us. It wasn’t easy. It hurt a lot. And anything that we sacrifice, and any pain or inconvenience associated with it, is far less than the supreme sacrifice Jesus made FOR US on the cross.
Lent is also the time when we should hit the ALT key in our lives . . . to ALTERNATE, to shake things up, to change what we normally do, to live life a little bit differently. And so during Lent we’re invited to add something to our daily routine, something that will put demands on us – something that demands our time and something that demands our effort. Maybe it means spending more time with your family . . . or . . . more time with God. Maybe it means daily prayer if that’s not your routine . . . or more time in prayer if it is . . . maybe praying the Rosary every day and reciting the Sorrowful Mysteries, since all of them focus on the suffering and death of our Lord. Maybe it means coming to Mass every Sunday if you don’t . . . or coming to daily Mass if you already do. Maybe it means attending the Stations of the Cross every Friday during Lent. Maybe it means finding the copy of the Bible that’s somewhere in your house, dusting it off, and reading a little bit of it every day so that you complete one book over the course of the forty days of Lent. (Maybe the Gospel of Mark; it’s the shortest Gospel and the one that’s proclaimed on the Sunday’s of our current liturgical year). Or maybe it means performing one not so random, but deliberate and well thought out, act of kindness every day.
And hitting the DELETE key in our lives, well that’s what Jesus addresses in today’s Gospel. Today’s Gospel was the shortest one you’ll hear all year - just three brief verses. But three very important verses, for in them we hear Jesus’ first words as he begins his public ministry: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel."
First words can be important and memorable. I bet those of you who are married can recall the first words you said to the one who would ultimately become your spouse or the first words that he or she said to you. Those of you who are parents, I bet you can recall the first words that your child said, whether it be “Mama,” “Dada,” “yes”, “no”, And the first words of a politician in his inaugural address become the words that set the tone of his term in office and are often referred back to in assessing his success.
In Jesus’ inaugural address he tells us, “REPENT!” Do we believe Jesus? Do we take him at his word? Do we see a need within ourselves to repent, or do we treat Jesus’ words merely as a joke that he tells at the beginning of a speech.
“Repent!” Sometimes, I think a lot of us are, what I call, “Christian Nihilists.” Nihilism is a philosophy that believes that nothing we do, whether right or wrong, makes any difference since there’s no God and life ends at death and therefore has no ultimate meaning. The Christian version of this is to believe that nothing we do, whether right or wrong, makes any difference because in the end, God is so loving and so forgiving that, no matter what, He will forgive us.
Is God loving? ABSOLUTELY! Is God forgiving? YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT! But we tend to forget that God is also just and that all of God’s attributes are in perfect harmony with each other. One never dominates the others. And so, God’s justice demands that we get what we deserve. But because God is loving and forgiving and just, God calls us to repentance. We can’t just sit back and expect God to do everything. Repentance requires initiative on our part.
And so, during Lent we’re called to DELETE . . . to repent, to recognize and get rid of our sinful ways. Perhaps to focus on our most serious sin, or the one we find ourselves most frequently committing, and working on it, conquering it, allowing it to no longer have a hold on us . . . deleting it from our minds, our hearts, our words, our actions, our souls, our lives. And the perfect way for us to DELETE is to go to Confession . . . to not only be forgiven by God but reconciled to God . . . to have our status as his sons and daughters restored – fully, totally, nothing held back, no lingering feelings of ill will on the part of God.
So here we are, on the threshold of the season of Lent. During this season we’re challenged to CTRL + ALT + DELETE – three keys when pressed simultaneously on our computers allows it to reboot, to get unstuck, to perform better - the way that it’s meant to. Same thing for us. During these forty days, sacrificing, devoting ourselves more to our spiritual lives, and repenting are the three keys which, when pressed simultaneously will reboot our lives, give us a fresh start, and allow us to be the people God created us to be.
CTRL + ALT + DELETE . . . Sounds like enough to keep us busy this Lent. Sounds like enough to keep us busy for a lifetime!
