Well we are in Lent and the first Sunday of it. Lent is one of the great seasons in the Church when we take time to take stock of our lives, to consider where we stand with God and other people.
Lent is traditionally the time when we give something up and take something up. This means we give up anything that takes us away from God and take up something which will bring us closer to God.
I remember in one Church where we worked a teenage girl explained to me that she was finding lent really hard. She had given up chocolate and had done so for two weeks, she asked me in a very exasperated way when lent was due to end. I had to explain to her that it wasn’t due to start for another two weeks !!
Anyway, we are definitely in lent and you can tell this because we haven’t said the Gloria and the reason is that we are getting ready for Easter. It is a somber time. I once asked a friend the best way that I could describe this time and he said, it is like taking a deep breath.
He said when you are about to sing really loudly you take a deep breath. He said not saying the Gloria or using the word Alleluia during lent is like taking a deep breath ready to rejoice at Easter.
I loved the idea of lent as being a time to take a deep breath. This morning in our gospel reading (Luke 4:1-13) we heard of the temptations of Jesus. Straight after His baptism Jesus went into the wilderness to take time, to reflect before He entered into His public ministry.
Jesus took time, He took a breath and this is what we are doing as well. Jesus was then tempted by all the things that would take Him away from God the Father, all that would stop Him trusting, all that would take Him away from His mission to bring us salvation.
Jesus took a breath and in taking a breath He was tempted but He stayed strong and He did it for us. He was tempted into an easier life, He was tempted into a life that would make Him seem more popular with everyone and not just His followers. He was tempted to trust in worldly power and authority. He refused and He did it by showing that His way was better.
We are taking a deep breath and in our time of taking a deep breath, we are taking time to reflect on our relationship with God.
In our readings today we have heard about the type of things we can do as we take our deep breath both during Lent and always. In the reading from Deuteronomy we heard about the need to remember. In that reading written to a people who had been freed from slavery in Egypt by God, we heard of the people being reminded to remember.
It sounds strange that they were being reminded of the need to remember. When the people left Egypt they kept wandering for over 40 years until they got to the land that God had promised. By the time they had reached the land families looked quite different as some members had died and new members had been born. The people who settled into the new land were living on the memory passed down from others about how they had been freed from slavery by God.
This is another reason why they needed to be reminded to remember.
In the reading from the letter to the Romans we heard about remembering again. This time all you needed to remember was that Jesus Is Lord and He had been raised from the dead. You were also to say this when asked, and it was to be your belief. This is quite an easy one for us I think.
In the gospel reading we heard of Jesus being tempted in the desert by Satan. Each of the Temptations made to Jesus were biblical, and he of course, responded with biblical answers. Each one of the Temptations came from the book of Deuteronomy. This is an interesting fact as our Old Testament reading was also from Deuteronomy.
In the gospel of Luke, as I said earlier, the account before this was of Jesus’s baptism. A moment of rejoicing when Jesus was blessed by the holy spirit. Jesus had received strength and this led him to the desert. I think this is how Jesus although fully God but also fully human was able to stand against the temptation set before him by Satan. Obviously, Jesus could stand against anything, after all He is God. But I like to think that it is by our own time spent in prayer asking for the strength of the holy spirit that we are able to stand against temptation.
I am not saying that we will that we will find ourselves in a desert, but each day we can be tempted in all sorts of ways. I’m not just talking about what we eat but more about what we say and how we act. Imagine if Jesus walked up to us right now, will we be able to say that we are never tempted to do or say something that’s not quite right. This is why we confess, no one is perfect.
Lent is a great time for us to grow closer to God and to each other as we think more about him and how he changes our lives and helps us in how we relate to each other.
It’s a little like an extreme exercise time. I have never done one of these for my physical health. However, it does sound brave to say that we can do this for our spiritual life.
Back to remembering, how about if this lent we saw all we do as a way to give thanks to God for all he has done for us. It doesn’t sound very scary and also it is the perfect way to live. As we take our deep breath may our praises be to God both now and always. AMEN
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