First Sunday in Lent
I met my husband, Bryon at the end of the year in 2005. He lived in Portland and I was in Northern California. Our first dates were in conjunction with church conferences we both were interested in attending so when I found out I had a required meeting in March of 2006 at an Episcopal camp on Oahu, I invited Bryon to come along. He could stay in one of the camp rooms for free and join the rest of us for meals and worship. I thought he’d jump at the opportunity for an inexpensive trip to Hawaii to be with me!
Instead, the first words out of his mouth were, “I can’t go on a vacation then. It will be in Lent.” I couldn’t believe it!!! Like many devout Christians, he understood Lent to be a time set apart for fasting, prayer and charity. And like many, he thought it meant you weren’t to allow yourself any pleasures. Well, my powers of persuasion are pretty good and the rest is history.
This approach to Lent of penitence and denial is reinforced by the fact that on the first Sunday of Lent, we always hear the story of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness. In this three-fold drama we imagine him facing the most extreme tests and emerging in triumph after 40 days to begin his public ministry.
He fasts to a point beyond hunger and yet refuses to succumb to the temptation to turn stones into bread. He is given the opportunity to prove to the world that he is God’s special and beloved Son by throwing himself off the heights of the Temple so that God can send angels to save him. Finally, he is offered his place as ruler of all the nations, King of Kings on earth if he will switch his allegiance from God to Satan.
This account is often summarized as Jesus saying “No” to temptation, “No” to the devil, and “No” to sin. With that emphasis, Lent becomes primarily a time to say “No.” Many of you were raised in traditions where you gave up something pleasurable for Lent. Catholics were told to abstain from eating meat on Fridays. Episcopalians made sure there were no flowers at the altar and no Alleluias in the hymns we sing during this season. And my dear Norwegian, Lutheran, pastor husband even concluded that it was wrong to take vacation during Lent, particularly vacation to a sunny beach with an attractive and available woman!
In this emphasis on “No” we miss some of the most interesting and important aspects of Jesus’s wilderness experience. First, it is the Spirit of God who leads and calls Jesus into the wilderness. God knows that there is something profound and necessary for Jesus that can only be found through this time in the desert. The Spirit calls and Jesus answers willingly. It is not so much that Jesus says “No” to the world, but that Jesus says “Yes” to the Spirit.
The wilderness holds a very special place in Scripture. It is outside of the Garden of Eden where humanity learns how to live with freedom of choice. The people of God are released from slavery and spend 40 years in the wilderness learning how to be fully free so that they might finally enter the Promised Land. People come to John the Baptizer in the wilderness, not only in repentance but primarily in search of a more meaningful life.
In his response to the tempter, Jesus always answers in the affirmative. He makes it clear that his “no” to temptation is based in a much stronger “Yes” to God, particularly to the God who is revealed in Scripture. He refuses to change stones into bread because he is feeding deeply on the promises of God. Later he will proclaim that he has food to eat that others do not know of, the food of an intimate connection to the source of life, his relationship with God.
His approach to fasting can be an example for us as well. Instead of simply saying “no” to certain foods, habits or temptations, we can consider creating space, time and energy to say “yes” to something and someone more life-giving.
Jesus answers the temptation for proof of God’s love by refusing to put it to a test from the top of the Temple. Just a month before, at the River Jordan, Jesus was baptized and heard the voice of God proclaim, “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
This is the essential truth in which every one of us can rest. We are God’s beloved children. We don’t have to do anything to earn that love. We don’t prove God’s love by being successful, healthy and without sin or failure. We can rely on the bedrock of God’s love, even when we are in the wilderness, even under extreme duress.
Finally, when offered full control over all the kingdoms of the world, Jesus answers that there is something more valuable than earthly power, affirmation or success. In worshipping and serving God, Jesus will find ultimate fulfillment. As is later written of him, “For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross.” In other words, even in the most difficult times, living in the faith, hope and love of God is living the abundant life. It is not poverty of purse that is destructive, but rather poverty of purpose. Authority, domination and hatred are never more powerful than love. “What will it profit you to gain the whole world, but lose your soul?”
When I was 33, I entered a wilderness period. Everything I had hoped and dreamed for and desired seemed to have disappeared. I left Christian ministry disillusioned with organized Christianity. This separation left me unemployed and with no particular direction. Shortly after that, the man I thought I would marry ended our relationship. I was broke, single and sleeping on the couch of a friend. This was not a wilderness of my own choosing, but it was a wilderness I now understand that the Spirit called me into.
Some good Christian friends invited me to come camping with them in the San Juans. Sleeping on the floor of the tent couldn’t be much worse than sleeping on the uncomfortable couch and I didn’t have anything else to do, so I agreed. It was a perfect Labor Day weekend on Lopez Island, the sun was shining and the water was sparkling. But I spent a lot of time in the tent crying and bemoaning the state of my life.
My friends were ministering angels. They didn’t try to cheer me up or fix me. One of them stayed with me at all times. They cooked meals. Sherri gave me a cross-stitch kit to start working on with all my free time. They got me out for short walks. Both of them had already suffered in much more profound ways than I had ever experienced and they were just who I needed at that moment. I believe they were sent by God. After that weekend, I began to move forward with baby steps.
From the wilderness, I was able to begin to say “Yes” to God in new ways. My trust and reliance upon God grew and became more real. A new call to serve God and others emerged as I discovered a church which affirmed women in ministry and allowed me to question and doubt. I found myself increasingly drawn to those on the margins, those who the world doesn’t notice or see as successful. I began to believe I was God’s beloved child.
Fifteen years later, I asked a kind, wise, loving man if he wanted to join me in Hawaii to get better acquainted. It turns out he had his own wilderness journey with a relationship which ended very badly when they took a vacation together in Hawaii. His “no” to a trip during Lent was also a fear response based on a painful past. But the Spirit had other ideas. Instead, he said “Yes” and we’re still saying yes to one another 20 years later.
I want to end with a quote from Frederick Buechner.
“THE FINAL SECRET, I think, is this: that the words “You shall love the Lord your God” become in the end, less a command than a promise. And the promise is that, yes, on the weary feet of faith and the fragile wings of hope, we will come to love him at last as from the first he has loved us—loved us even in the wilderness, especially in the wilderness, because he has been in the wilderness with us. He has been in the wilderness for us. He has been acquainted with our grief. And, loving him, we will come at last to love each other too.”
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