Today is the beginning of Lent. The word Lent is an old English word for “lengthen” relating to the lengthening of days in the northern hemisphere spring. Lent is a time when we think about renewing our relationship with God. The season began as the church’s time for preparing adults for baptism. So today, we will welcome Jessica and Michelle as our baptism candidates for this year. Over the centuries, the season of Lent has acquired other themes. The medieval church emphasised Lent as a season of penitence. Many still think of it as a season for focusing on the cross of Christ. So our modern understanding of Lent brings all these themes together. We will be preparing adults for baptism. Some of us will study the faith in Lent groups. The bishop expects your vicar to begin introducing the practice of “Reconciliation of a penitent” to the life of this parish. That has commonly been called “confession”. I will speak more about that in the weeks and months to come.
You will have noticed some changes in our liturgy to give this season a special feel. There is a change in the tone of the music for Lent. We omit singing “the Gloria” and the singing of “alleluia” for the next six weeks. Don’t think this means we stop giving glory and praise to God. What we are doing is slimming things down to essentials, getting rid of some of the clutter in our worship. Just as people give things up in Lent to focus more on God, that’s what the church does with the Liturgy in Lent, so that we can focus on communion with Christ. In the same vein, we have no flowers in church. The colour we wear is purple, the colour we use for seasons of the year when we are on an intentional journey. The church, you and me, are all on a journey to the cross and to the empty tomb. We are preparing to be joined to Christ’s death on the cross; to be participants in his suffering and death, so that God can raise us up with him into eternal life. That’s why this season of Lent is so important, and why Holy Week and Easter are the most important days of the church year. This season reminds us that being faithful Christians is about being on a journey. Michelle and Jessica will be walking reminders for us all, of this journey of growth and discovery in our relationship with God. It doesn’t matter how old or who young you are; all of us are invited on this journey with Christ to the cross. Faithful Christians will be planning for Holy Week and Easter now. Whether you will be at home or on holiday this Easter, all of us need to be making sure we can get to the key services on Maundy Thursday evening, Good Friday and, of course, the Great Vigil of Easter which is the most important liturgy of the whole year unfolding the mysteries of Easter with such richness.
We have before us in our gospel reading Luke’s account of Jesus sojourn in the desert. Often we hear of Christians talking disparagingly about “wilderness times” in their spiritual lives. They speak of times of dryness; times when God seems to be absent. So it’s not surprising that the bible often talks about the wilderness. All through the bible, though, we notice that the wilderness is a place of encounter with God. Prophets like Hosea and Jeremiah talk about God drawing Israel away into the desert like a lover seducing his mistress. It was in the desert that Moses and Israel experience God’s provision of water and food. It is in the wilderness that we encounter hunger and thirst, and with nothing else to sustain us we become utterly aware of our dependence on God for everything. Wilderness times are time of the greatest vulnerability and they have the potential to be the times of greatest growth in our relationship with God.
So it was for Jesus. In the wilderness he too struggled with the same things that we struggle with in our lives; the same pains, the same tensions, the same wondering about the silence of God, the same frustrations that we live with day by day. Just as Moses and the people of Israel had done years before, Jesus, one greater than Moses, recapitulates Israel’s sojourn through the desert. He faces the same of temptations that Israel faced all those years before. It is in the wilderness he learns about the pitfalls of life and his need of God.
Temptations often appear camouflaged as blessings that offer an exit when there seems to be no way out. Sometimes they come in the guise of goodness for someone who is down. These are the sort of temptations Jesus encountered in his sojourn through the desert. They are the same temptations we too encounter in our every day living. The first temptation has to do with how Jesus will use his divine authority and power. The challenge: turn these stones into bread! This would be an irresistible temptation after 40 days of fasting. Here is the chance to alleviate excruciating hunger and to show convincingly that God is with Jesus. Yet Jesus resisted the temptation, for only God calls forth the power of God. When the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, they were given manna to sustain them. We are given the bread of life. “I am the bread of life,” says Jesus. “I was once desperately hungry. Come to me all who hunger, and you will never be hungry again.” Jesus experienced genuine hunger. He knows about our physical hunger, and he understands the hunger of our souls. He taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” This prayer is for all who hunger for survival, and, who like Jesus are tempted to compromise their souls to satisfy the hunger within.
Jesus endured three temptations when he was in the wilderness. The final two seem entwined. One addresses power and the human tendency to dominate and control other people (the temptation to take power over the nations on earth); the other concerns religious power, the extent to which we try and exert power over God (the temptation to perform a miracle at the temple to prove God’s favour.).
At the heart of temptation is that word “if.” In the story, Satan uses that horrible, seductive, manipulative word “if”. If you really are God…,” Satan said to Jesus. We are prone to say the same to God are we not? “If you’re really there God,” we say, “then answer my prayer,” by which we really mean, “Come on God, do what I want!” Sometimes I wish the word “If” could be taken out of our vocabulary. Jesus resisted that temptation. He let God be God, and resisted putting pressure on God, or manipulating God. What he is showing us is that we need to take our share of responsibility for the way we use the gifts and freedoms God has given us. We need to trust that God loves us and accepts us as we are and wants only good for us. We also need to avoid the temptation of trying anything to get God on side with our agenda. It’s fair enough to be honest with God about our needs and our agendas, but God is not open to manipulation and will not be used as an instrument to help us get our own way.
Brothers and sisters, there is no escaping the wilderness. We all have wilderness times in our lives whether we like it or not. The wilderness may come at times of great sadness and huge suffering. When it comes, it surrounds us with its relentless heat and awesome silence, and it is teeming with loneliness and temptation. If that is where you are now, be on the watch for God. Nothing separates us from God. He will be come to you and be with you. The witness of the biblical writers is that whenever they found themselves in the desert, that was when they encountered God; think of Moses and the burning bush at a time when he thought he run away in shame, defeat and failure. Think of the exiles who had watched their loved ones die and their homes being destroyed. These people all wrestled with the silence of God, the absence of God, the feelings of loss and defeat and shame. Yet God restored them all, every time. God sustained Jesus too, and when he emerged from the desert empowered by the Spirit all were amazed at his wisdom and the authority of his teaching. God will come to you too. He will raise you up and restore and heal, because that is who God us. God is faithful and has never failed to bring the people of God into the Promised Land. Like Jesus, the Spirit of God enables us to emerge in the power of the Spirit to preach the good news to the poor, to free those who are imprisoned, to liberate those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of God. We’re also led to pray: Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil, for the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever Amen.
