The season of Lent is not easy, but teaches us how to face difficult days. Sermon recorded at Zion United Church in Armstrong BC Canada.

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Luke 4:1-13

So here we are, in the season of Lent. Now I suspect that many of us have a problem with Lent—that it’s really not our favourite season. So let’s check this out. 

Put up your hand if you’re really looking forward to Lent. Okay now—let’s see a show of hands if you’re really not that keen on Lent, or downright don’t like Lent.

So, those of you who don’t like Lent, what are the reasons you don’t like Lent. 

I think there are a lot of reasons why we don’t like Lent. It has a lot of negative associations in our minds. If you were to ask people on the street what they know about Lent, I think the vast majority would say something along the lines of, “Lent is when you give something up—like chocolate, sweets, some guilty pleasure that you normally enjoy.”

So we think of Lent as a negative time, a time of giving things up, a time when we are supposed to deprive ourselves of things we normally enjoy, because somehow doing so is good for our spiritual health. Well, phooey on that!, we want to say.

I mentioned at the beginning of the service that Lent is a penitential season, a time for repentance, and I think that’s another reason why we don’t like Lent. If giving up chocolate wasn’t enough to turn you off the idea of Lent, probably penance and repentance will. Those are words that we really don’t like to hear. 

For some of us they may be triggering words, based on past experiences, so I want to be clear in what I say today about how I understand those words. 

But even for those of us who aren’t triggered by those words, we still don’t like to hear them. Again, they are full of negative associations—guilt and shame, and a nagging reminder that we really need to clean up our act, and be better people. 

All of these thoughts and feelings about Lent: giving things up, hardship, self-imposed suffering, feelings of guilt and shame, and the need to reform and improve ourselves, to clean up our act—all these associations lead us to have a pretty negative view of Lent.

In the words of the opening prayer of confession, “O God, we confess that we often come to you reluctantly, afraid of what we might have to give up or change when we enter your presence.”

We are reluctant to enter into Lent, to follow Jesus into the harsh and demanding environment of the wilderness. We don’t want to go there.

It’s not that we think we are perfect people, with no need of improvement. Indeed some of us may be well aware of the need to reflect on our relationship with chocolate, or sweets, or any other thing that seems to have too tight a grip on us. 

It’s just that a “desert detox with Jesus” seems like harsh medicine, and we’d really prefer to find a way to avoid that—to get where we want to go without that detour into the Lenten wilderness.

That’s really what’s at the heart of the Gospel story today. The temptation to find a quick and painless route to where we are going, and to avoid struggle, suffering, and deprivation. 

This story takes place at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, just after he has been baptized by John. The three temptations, the three bargains that the devil tries to entice Jesus into, they all offer Jesus the opportunity to avoid the struggle, suffering, and deprivation of the cross. That’s really what’s at stake here for Jesus.

The devil is saying, “I know what you’re trying to achieve; let me help you to get there without going through the pain, the suffering, the shame, of the cross. Let me help you find an easy way.”

In the Gospels as a whole, it’s the Cross—Jesus’ crucifixion, and death and burial, and God’s raising of Jesus’ back to life on the third day—it’s the Cross that provides the ultimate verification of who Jesus is, that he is God’s Son, God’s messenger, that he reveals who God is, and what God cares about. 

In this story, the devil is offering Jesus a way to prove who he is, to prove his power, to win people over to his message, without the Cross. That’s what’s going on in the three temptations. 

Surely if Jesus turned stones into bread, he could feed not only himself, but he could feed the world. End world hunger like that! Think of how popular that would make you, Jesus—the crowds would flock to you! 

And Jesus says, No. Because my mission is not just about filling people’s stomachs, as important as that is. It’s about drawing people into a relationship with God that nourishes body and soul. 

Next the devil offers Jesus power over all the nations of the world. Jesus, I can make you King of the world; think of all the good you could do: you could pass laws to make the world just and fair, you could implement your entire agenda just like that! Isn’t that what you want?

And again Jesus says, No. Because my mission is not about implementing a particular legislative agenda or partisan program. My mission is to remind everyone of the truth that the whole world belongs to God, who is just and good and cares for the widow and the orphan. 

Finally the devil tempts Jesus to pull off a spectacular death-defying feat: jump off the roof of the temple in Jerusalem, and have God’s angels swoop in and save you from certain death! How the crowds will love that! Everyone will believe in you then!

And, once more, Jesus says, No. My mission is not about stunts and magic tricks that show off God’s power, just to impress a crowd. It turns out God’s got something much bigger in mind, not at the Jerusalem Temple, but on a hill outside town, and in a garden a few days later. 

Not just a death-defying stunt, but the raising of Jesus from the dead.

Jesus’ refusal of the devil’s easy way out will lead him eventually to the Cross. When Jesus says No three times to the devil, he is saying Yes to the Cross as the only way, as God’s way, to fulfill his mission. For Jesus, it is all about his ultimate trust in, and reliance on, God.

We are not Jesus. And we are not called to do as Jesus does in this story, in the literal sense of going to the Cross. But I do think that Jesus’ choices offer us a pattern for our Lenten journey.

Firstly, we are invited to turn into Lent, and not turn away. Rather than seeking an easy and painless way to get to where we want to go, we are invited to take that sojourn into the desert with Jesus, and to open ourselves to what we will find there. 

We can follow Jesus’ example to deepen our trust in, and our reliance on, God. That’s really the point of a lot of traditional Lenten practices. If we go back to our “objections” to Lent that we started with, the whole idea of “giving something up” for Lent sounds like a kind of punishment that is supposed to do us good.

But the practice of loosening the hold that some things—foods or habits—have over us is also an opportunity to reflect on what it is we fill our lives with. The practice of giving something up can allow us to make more room for our relationship with God, perhaps through prayer, or spiritual reading, or meditation. 

Similarly, the idea of penitence or repentance sounds like it’s about guilt and shame and self-loathing, habits of mind that can cause us a lot of pain and hardship. But I think about repentance really as turning towards God, and finding that God joyfully welcomes us home—you know it’s the story of the Prodigal Son whose Father sees him at a distance, runs out to meet him, and clasps him in an embrace, crying tears of joy on his return.

Repentance means giving up the things that keep us from God, and deepening our trust in God, and our reliance on God. 

One of my favourite Saints is St. Augustine, who was a bishop in North Africa around the year 400. On the first page of his autobiography, the Confessions, he wrote: “you have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.” 

I think that’s a perfect one-sentence summary of the purpose of Lent—to help our restless hearts find their rest in God. 

May you have a Holy and Blessed Lent. Amen.