Sunday, February 26: First Sunday of Lent
Matthew 4:1-11
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’
”Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up,so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’
”Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,‘Worship the Lord your God,and serve only him.’”Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
A friend of mine and I were talking this morning about the meaning of Lent. She is a very spiritual person who loves God and shares God’s love with others freely. Curious to find out what she believes about Lent, I asked her for her perspective on the importance of Lent for Christians. My friend shared her belief that Lent is a time that we open ourselves to God’s love for us, and that the spiritual practices we engage in help us to trust in God.
We then got to talking about this passage from Matthew and the temptations set before him by Satan. We wondered aloud if Jesus could have done anything different than what he chose to do (which was to say no to Satan, not once, but three times) and we concluded that if Jesus was fully human alongside being fully God, then he must have been given the gift of free will. Which makes his choice to rely on God even more significant. Jesus completely and wholly became one of us, and knew what it is like to be experience all the difficulties that life brings.
In the above passage from Matthew, Jesus “was led by the Spirit” to go into the wilderness – in other words, it was a deliberate choice. It was the time between his baptism and the beginning of his ministry – a time of liminality and great vulnerability. By deliberately choosing to go into the wilderness and fast “for 40 days and 40 nights”, Jesus showed us, once again, that he entered fully into the human experience.
I wish I was better at trusting God. I second guess decisions based on prayer and reflection, and wonder if I did the right thing. Lent is a time for me to ask God to help me trust in God’s providence, and to try to put God first in my life. As I journey with Jesus in the sometimes-wilderness of my life, I can ask God for the grace to believe that, along with Jesus, I too, will experience resurrection and new life.