Today’s Gospel tells us that Jesus was driven into the desert where he had to face temptation as any human being does, and the temptations were real: they were not somehow easier because he was the son of God. He was tempted by physical hunger, by the promise of power, wealth and status, and finally by the promise of safety, of being able to avoid somehow, human suffering. And it cost him every bit of strength that he could muster to resist these temptations.  

Why did he do it? He could have avoided it; he could have taken a different path. The Spirit led him into the desert, but he had a choice, he had free will. He went into the desert willingly, because it was in the desert that he would understand the nature of his mission. Stripped of human comfort and security, he understood his identity and the task before him. 

The desert was not only an arid place and a home to wild beasts; it was the place where God first entered into a covenant relationship with Israel after liberating her from the oppression and injustice of Egypt. The covenant established a love relationship between God and God’s people after their forty-year journey that we call the exodus. It was a time of sweetness in the relationship between God and the Hebrews. But when the exodus ended and and life became ‘normal’ again, they quickly forgot about their covenant relationship with God. The honeymoon was soon over. 

This is when the prophets entered the story! Isaiah, Hosea, Ezechiel, Jeremiah, and others. Again and again they called God’s people to come back into relationship with God. The call of the desert was an invitation to be alone with God, to enter into a renewed and deepened relationship, to become re-aligned with God’s intention for their lives. 

And so it is for us: these forty days are an opportunity and an invitation to slow down, to be less busy, to allow space for God. And it can be hard if we are used to being busy, to filling up all our time, to allow for periods of silence, to make more time for prayer; to become comfortable with silence.  

It is hard for us in this present time; we are bombarded on all sides by media – as news, as information, and as entertainment. These days it is becoming difficult with the advent of artificial intelligence to determine what is true and what isn’t. Add to that the many legitimate demands on our time and the many, many needs in the world, and we become spiritually exhausted. 

Even more difficult is the Lenten call to honestly face our inadequacies, our limitations, our flaws and our failings: not to beat ourselves up: but to come to terms with our dependence on God, our need for God, and our complete inability to face the desert alone. 

But here is the good news: God calls us into the desert because God wants to be in relationship with us. God is waiting for us to respond, to trust, to let go. We are in safe hands as we walk through our own particular desert, and we are never alone.  

Yes, we each have own unique wilderness to navigate, and Lent is about entering into it courageously, because if we can do that, it is the place where we will encounter Jesus. We are driven into the wilderness, not to suffer for suffering’s sake, but to be transformed by the encounter with Jesus. 

We want so much to be in control, to be masters of our own destiny, but Jesus is inviting us to give up control and trust that he will lead us along the path that is right for us. 

Our Anglican liturgical cycle provides us with an opportunity, for forty days, to reflect on our relationship to God and to one another.  

Lent reminds that our time here is limited: 

To quote the author Sister Joan Chittister: 

“We don’t have enough time to waste on nothingness. We need to repent our dillydallying on the road to God. We need to regret the time we’ve spent playing with dangerous distractions and empty diversions along the way… Ash Wednesday confronts us with what we have become and prods us to do better” 

“But the voice of Lent is not a dour one. It is a call to remember who we are and where we have come from. The voice of Lent is the cry to become new again. It is the promise of mercy, the guarantee of new life.” 

May we make this journey together as a community of faith and come together to the joy of Easter.  Amen.

 

 

 

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