Into the Wilderness
Elaine Poproski Download: Audio
Scripture Reading: Matthew 4:1-11 (NRSV)
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Read more…
Looking to Sunday
by Elaine Poproski
The season of Lent has begun. It’s the season of the Christian church year that leads up to Easter. Traditionally, it’s about self-reflection; it’s about remembering why we need Easter. It’s time and space set aside to honestly contemplate our own sinfulness and to remember God’s grace and deep love for us in the midst of it. In the words of another Baptist I greatly respect, “Lent leads us in the Way of Jesus so that sin can’t tell us how to live” (Dale Soble, The Unconventional Baptist).
Officially, Lent began on Wednesday of this week. Some people marked the day by having a cross drawn on their foreheads with ashes made from last year’s palm branches. The ashes are about mourning and grief; they’re a visible reminder that human beings are not holy and perfect as was intended when we were created; the ashes are meant to encapsulate all that’s wrong in our world, in our lives, and in ourselves.
Throughout the season of Lent here at Walmer, we’re going to be talking a lot about the wilderness. The wilderness is an important place in the Bible. It’s the place the Israelites lived for 40 years before entering the Promised Land – the place they transformed from being a motley crew of ex-slaves to being a nation. The wilderness is the place to which the great prophet Elijah ran in fear for his life after defeating the prophets of an enemy god, and it was the place in which God cared for and comforted this exhausted, terrified servant of His. The wilderness is the place Jesus spent 40 days immediately after His baptism; it’s the place He was tempted to do things differently than God had ordained and it was the place He chose to be the Saviour we needed instead.
The wilderness is a place of struggle; it’s a hard place to be; but it’s also the place where God shapes us and forms us into the people He made us to be. The wilderness isn’t a place we get excited about, but it is a good place. As we step into the season of Lent, we are invited to gather our courage and go to this challenging place because it is the only road that leads to the abundant, eternal life that is the Easter resurrection.
Will you join us this Sunday as together we begin our Lenten journey? If so, I invite you to spend some time before you arrive, considering your own experiences of wilderness. The wilderness is wild, untamed, vast, and dangerous. It is also a place God meets us and shapes us. Can you remember a time in your life when you were in the wilderness? How did you survive? Who needs to hear your story? Maybe you’re in the wilderness right now; what do you need to survive it? What stands in the way of you willingly entering the wilderness of Lent this year? What do you need from your church family as you consider the coming weeks?