The 40-day season of Lent draws its structure from several stories in scripture..
The main story that Lent is structured after is the one we just heard: the story of Jesus in the wilderness.
For forty days, Jesus was in the wilderness, where he faced temptation, fasted, and drew upon the strength of God’s Spirit to sustain him when his mind and body were weak. The 40 days of Lent are meant as a reminder of the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness.
But there is also the story of the Exodus, when Moses led God’s people on a journey to the promised land. That also took place in the wilderness; and the number 40 also plays into it, since the book of Exodus says that they wandered in the wilderness for forty years.
And the days of Lent are often thought of as a journey.
There are also echoes of Noah’s time on the ark. God sent rain upon the earth, rain that lasted for 40 days. Drifting across the waters in the ark, Noah and his family were in a wilderness, of sorts, an empty place, a wild place, though their wilderness was a wilderness on water rather than on land.
It was also in the wilderness that Elijah encountered God’s still small voice. In the book of 1 Kings, Elijah is in the wilderness. He was on the run; people were after him. He journeyed into the wilderness, going as far as he could, as fast as he could, until he collapsed under a solitary broom tree, ready to die.
But that’s when God appeared, first in the form of an angel, who encouraged him to eat. The angel said to Elijah: “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you… Get up and eat, so that you may have the strength you need.”
…Which brings to mind the manna that God provided to Moses and his people while they journeyed through the wilderness.
After eating, Elijah journeyed further into the wilderness. Any guesses how long he journeyed?
Forty days!
And then there was a great wind, hurling like a tornado across the prairie; but God was not in the wind.
Then there was an earthquake, stronger than any I ever felt back in California; and then, a fire; and after that, the sound of sheer silence.
And it was in that sound of sheer silence, that emptiness, that the Lord appeared.
In the silence, the emptiness, of that wilderness, the Lord appeared, and Elijah received the strength and the assurance he needed.
There are other wilderness stories. In the wilderness Hagar pleaded with God on behalf of her son Ishmael. In the wilderness John the Baptist proclaimed his message of repentance.
So many stories of the wilderness…
And every year, on the first Sunday of Lent, the gospel reading from the lectionary is the story of Jesus in the wilderness, praying, fasting, facing temptation.
And you may be wondering: Why?
Why the wilderness?
In the wilderness one becomes disoriented and bewildered. It’s a place of questions, not answers. It’s a place to get lost, not found.
At our Ash Wednesday worship service, I did feel a little disorientation, as people came forward, and I placed ashes on their foreheads. I found it hard to wrap my head around the significance, the meaning, of it all, even though I’ve been leading Ash Wednesday services for quite a few years now. And I felt so very humbled that I was the one who was administering these ashes.
☀ Afterward, I wondered if we shouldn’t consider ashes to be a sacrament. In Disciples history and tradition, there are two acts that are considered sacraments: Baptism, and the Lord’s Supper.
Actually, our early founders called them ordinances; they didn’t much like the word sacrament.
Nevertheless, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are visible signs of God’s grace, which is why they are called sacraments. Sacraments are visible signs of God’s grace. God’s grace is invisible, abstract, but in the sacraments, it appears to us as something real and concrete: Bread. Wine. Baptismal water.
But aren’t the ashes we receive on Ash Wednesday similar?
I did a little research. According to Catholics, the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday is a “Sacramental,” not a “Sacrament.” The main difference between a “sacramental” and a “sacrament,” according to the Catholic church, is that anyone can receive a “sacramental,” but only church members can receive a “sacrament.”
Well, for Disciples like us, anyone can receive the Lord’s Supper; you don’t have to be a church member. All are welcome. The table is open.
So in our context, I’m still not sure why we can’t consider ashes to be a sacrament. Or an ordinance.
With any sacrament—communion, baptism, ashes—I always feel as if I’m only understanding a part of the whole. Every sacrament is a sign of God’s grace and mercy and love, and who can fully understand the full extent of God’s grace and mercy and love?
In the letter to the Ephesians, we are encouraged “to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” [3.19]. But how does one know something that is beyond knowledge?
Think about that for a second…
In the book of Proverbs, it says: “Three things are too wonderful for me; four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock; the way of a ship on the high seas; and the way of a man with a young woman” [30.18-19].
I think of the sacraments like that: as too wonderful for me to understand.
I think of God’s grace and mercy and love like that: as too wonderful for me to understand fully.
But it is something to think about, to ponder, to meditate on night and day. Because there is more there than we can ever fully understand, we can meditate on it endlessly, for the rest of our lives, and never come to the end. It’s a never ending journey of wonder.
And the season of Lent gives me a great opportunity to do just that, to focus on the grace, mercy, and love that is too great for me to understand.
☀ Many people like to give things up for Lent. At the dinner before our Ash Wednesday service, that was one of the topics talked about at the table where I was sitting.
Ideally, what we give up makes space in our lives for God. And what we give up makes space in our lives for meditation and prayer.
Too often, God gets crowded out of our lives. Give something up that gets in the way of God, so that God has space to enter into your life.
I think my first exposure to this idea was when I was a child, and I heard my maternal grandmother, who was Catholic, talk about not eating meat during Lent, at least on Fridays. It was to remind her of Christ’s sacrifice, she said.
So her giving up meat on Fridays during Lent helped her make space in her life for God.
This was new to me. I’ve been part of the Disciples of Christ my whole life, and grew up going to a Disciples church with my parents and my paternal grandparents. And like other Protestants, we Disciples didn’t pay much attention to Lent, or Ash Wednesday, not until the past couple of decades.
But I always admired the deep faith and devotion of my maternal grandmother, my Catholic grandmother, and admired the way she made space for God in her life, especially during Lent.
And the wilderness experience of so many characters in the Bible helped them make space in their lives for God. A wilderness experience is an emptying experience. The things that distract us from God are no longer there, and we’re left alone with God, and left alone with our own thoughts, our own emotions, and our own temptations.
It’s very hard to set aside our distractions. For many, our cell phones are an example of this. It’s hard to set them aside, even when doing so for a period of time is good for us. We want access to the information they provide, every moment of every day. We feel an emptiness without them.
We don't like the emptiness of the wilderness. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so do we. Our minds crave constant stimulation.
Why don’t we like the emptiness? Because in the emptiness, we might have to face the pain, the brokenness within. We might have to face our DEMONS. We might have to deal with the grief or loneliness we feel.
In the emptiness, in the silence, things get REAL. Too real, for a lot of people.
But if we don’t spend time with grief, we’ll never heal from the grief. If we don’t spend time in our depression, we’ll never identify what in our life might be causing the depression. If we don’t spend time with our temptations, we’ll never be able to recognize them, or resist them.
One has to spend some time alone to figure out what those demons are, what deep darkness or sadness dwells within, that has been ignored for far too long.
You might have to spend time alone to identify them,...
And that’s scary.
But you don’t have to make that journey alone. There is strength for you on the journey to healing and wholeness…
After Jesus met his demons, angels came and ministered to him (Luke leaves that out, but it’s in Matthew, and it’s in Mark).
After Elijah was ready to give up in the wilderness, an angel came to him as well, and gave him something to eat.
It was just what he needed.
And God was with Noah, and God was with Hagar, and God was with all those who found themselves journeying through the wilderness.
Our journey may lead us through the wilderness. Our journey may lead us to confront our fears, our pain, our loneliness, and our temptations.
But there is strength for the journey. There is bread for the journey. There is manna. There is sustenance. So even when the journey is hard, God will give you the stamina you need to endure it. God journeys with you. You are not alone.
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