As we journey through Lent, remember the words I spoke of last time. Breathe them in and out and remember God with us in the wilderness time.
Courage – love – truth – faithfulness
Lent is a time of great truth as we prepare for Easter and we take these 40 days to remember, among other things, Jesus wandering in the desert. The story I reflected on at the start of this Lent is the one found in Luke chapter 4, verses 1-13. The central part of this is three temptations for Jesus: to turn stones into bread, to test God, and to grab power.
However, the first thing that struck me this year as I read this familiar passage was in verse 2 where it says he was tempted for 40 days. These 3 temptations, which we often think of as “The Temptations” were not the only ones. Throughout the 40 days of wilderness wandering, Jesus has been tempted. The tempter has been niggling away at him, and with a little imagination we can imagine what that might have been like with the tempter questioning Jesus’ commitment to his call. How hard it must have been for Jesus to stay true. This means that the 3 temptations we are told about are the pinnacle of what has been going on for 40 days and nights.
There is no doubt that Jesus would have needed to pray for courage to cope, and for love too so that he didn’t become angry and twisted in his torment. But most of all he would have needed to have held onto truth and remind himself again and again what it is really about.
What is the truth of God being flesh? The temptations of being human are to look for quick fixes by turning bread into stone, or to grasp for power – which of course we see a great deal of in our world. And of course, we want to know if God is really there for us, so to test God by seeing if the angels will come when needed is a very human temptation because perhaps we all fear from time to time that God might not really be there.
What is truth in all of this? Well, the truth is that God is not easy to prove, so we trust. But we don’t trust out of nothing, we trust out of the stories of our faith history and the stories of our lives that have shown us the truth that God does not need to be tested for God has been shown to be true. For even in our deepest darkness, a light has shone and we have found a way to live and we recognise that God has been there all the time, even if we have not noticed.
Another truth is that when we do put God to the test, when we do long for power and when we do try and find quick-fix solutions, God does not abandon us. When we come out the other end, realising how we messed up, God is still there, with us. As I sometimes say in our communal prayer times: when we turn back to God, we find that God is already turned towards us.
The other thing that struck me when I read the passage this year is that the temptations don’t end when Jesus leaves the wilderness. Luke tells us that the tempter left Jesus “until an opportune time.” It went on. And it does go on. The temptation to give up, to test God, to take what looks like an easier option, to turn away from what we need to do and be in the world, to worship money, to not love all our neighbours, particularly the ones we might see as enemies (and that one is really hard)…. the list goes on. “I see the lights that dazzle, the tempting sounds I hear…” as the hymn goes.
Which is why we need to stop and pray for courage and love and truth and, of course, faithfulness. Faithfulness to be the people God calls us to be. Faithfulness to come back to God when we have failed to be those people. Faithfulness in God’s forgiving love, which is there for us, even when we have given into temptation.
I end with words of a hymn that we have been learning across the churches, one we will sing at our Mission Partnership celebration service on 12th April, and one that holds deep truth for us in our Lenten journey:
Jesus, lover of wanderers, daily we seek your voice.
Keep us within your tenderness, visit our every choice.
Oh, we need your promises.
Yes, and to hear you voice.
For our eyes are often closed,
and our hearts are made of stone.
Jesus, lover of wanderers, daily we seek your voice.
Keep us within your tenderness, visit our every choice.
Goodness can be in short supply.
Sadness can overcome,
and our words are often cold
and our dreams, they can grow old.
Jesus, lover of wanderers, daily we seek your voice.
Keep us within your tenderness, visit our every choice.
Come now and take your little ones,
hold us within your arms.
Take us in, with all our pain.
Touch your world with love again.
Jesus, lover of wanderers, daily we seek your voice.
Keep us within your tenderness, visit our every choice.
© Gerry Holmes. (Clapton Park song bk. 1)
God bless us all this week, as we journey on toward Easter. Rev Anne
Stanley Spencer: Christ in the Wilderness