Monthly Message (March 2010) - Following Jesus through Lent

Dear Friends,

Lent, the time of year when Christians accompany Jesus on the 40 day journey in the desert, takes us right back to the beginnings and basics of what it means to be Christian people. Right to the heart of the fundamental question of whether being a person of Christian faith makes a difference to the way we live - whether invisible faith makes visible difference.

Jesus went out into the desert, the story tells us, and endured testing and faced up to soul searching. He had already been touched by the spirit of God, the story tells us, and already heard the voice of God call him ‘my beloved’ at his baptism. But then, the story tells us, it is that same spirit of God that leads him, or sends him, out into the wilderness where he encountered ‘temptation’. The wilderness story, it seems, does not doubt that he is the ‘beloved’, there is nothing fragile or questionable about God’s choice of him …. No, this story is about his choices in response to God’s love.

So for Jesus too, the question is not whether he will be God’s beloved … but how he will become all that he can be, how he will focus his life and engage with other people, how he will make the difference as God has called and equipped him to do, in the world. Out there in the quiet and empty wilderness only he is there to see and hear and think. In his questions and search for answers he will grow through the difficulties of hunger, doubt and frustrated wishful thinking …. to be the person who can stand in the synagogue and tell his neighbours that he knows why he is alive …. To bring good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the bind, release to the captives and liberty to the oppressed.

The writer, Mary Gordon, wrote this thought : “One of the rare human achievements is to be so sure of one’s self that one resists the temptation to prove one’s own worth to someone else.” Time and time again in his life Jesus is tested, questioned by people who in their own dilemmas want to trick him into agreeing with them … but here in the hardship of the desert, as he works out his purpose and direction, he grows into the person who can see and make choices over such temptations.

For 40 days we follow him into the wilderness and in prayer and attention to our spiritual journey face up to the temptations of our day and age … and we too are asked the question of how we will respond to the God who loves us and has a purpose for us in the world. We too can be sure that God loves us … that nothing will ever change that solid love … we too are challenged to respond to God’s love for us and for the world.

May Lent, however you travel through it, be a time of growing along with Jesus into the people who bring good news and new life to our world.

Yours,

Tracey.