WORSHIP

It’s no accident that we start each Lenten season with the story of Jesus in the wilderness tempted by Satan for forty days and nights. It is from this story of privation that our own 40-day Lenten journey comes (it’s actually 46 days if you count the Sundays, but that’s a story for another day).
 

This idea of wilderness testing and trying those who enter it is a narrative arc we see again and again in scripture. Wilderness is a scary place filled with dangerous creatures, scarce resources and seen as a desolate unforgiving environment. It is however also the place where things come into focus, a prophet’s mission is made clear, a people is formed around a holy mountain. When God’s people are in those wilderness places we are renewed, transformed, broken down and remade.
 

Lent then for us today cannot and should not be a reset of our new year’s resolutions, nor should it be a miserable trudge of self-flagellation wallowing in self-hatred or impenetrable despair. Instead, it is a wilderness time that is not without its hardships of course, we are facing down our sin and its consequences after all. But this journey is also one of self-discovery and renewal, of letting go of what was and embracing what will be. That’s the funny thing about new life, you must die first. We need those wilderness places to challenge us to grapple with what is broken, die to those things, so that with Jesus we can be raised on that resurrection morning. Blessings on your wilderness journey.

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As Ever in Christ,

Pastor CJ