Swallowsrest

Lent 1 – 2025

Luke 4:1-13

Marian Free

In the name of God, who asks only that we seek and serve God alone. Amen.

Over the past week the following meme has been posted several times on Facebook.

“This Lent keep the chocolate and give up bigotry, judgement, legalism and hatred in all forms.”

I find it helpful as it serves as a reminder that Lent is less about willpower and more about facing our humanity in all its ugliness. If, for example, we spend the entirety of Lent battling to go without chocolate, wine or some other pleasure, and emerge triumphant at Easter because we have resisted the temptation to indulge in the forbidden treat, but if in the process we have in essence remained unchanged, then we have missed the point. Worse, in giving up something superficial like chocolate, we have only made Lent self-focussed, rather than God focussed. In fact, rather than learning how much we need to depend on God, we have, by our dependence on willpower, demonstrated that we don’t need God – we can overcome temptation all on our own! Instead of learning to trust in God, all we have done is proven how little we trust in God!

It is useful to look at Jesus’ time in the wilderness which mirrors that of the Israelites who, having been delivered by God from their Egyptian oppressors spent 40 years in the wilderness. Both the Israelites and Jesus are named as God’s Son before they are thrust into the wilderness, but whereas the desert experience only revealed the Israelites complete lack of faith in God, Jesus time in the wilderness demonstrated his complete and utter trust – this despite facing many of the same obstacles as faced by the Israelites – testing in the form of hunger, thirst, and the apparent absence of God. Whereas the Israelites complained, put God to the test and worshipped other gods, Jesus steadfastly refuses to do anything that would compromise his integrity, demonstrate self-reliance or evidence a lack of trust in God. 

Each of the tests that Jesus faces mirrors one that the Israelites faced (and failed). 

For generations the Israelites had suffered increasing privations under the Egyptians. They had been enslaved, made to work increasingly hard and the latest Pharoah had demanded that their male children be killed at birth. Finally, God intervened to set them free. God not only delivered them from the hands of Pharoah, God also ensured that they did not leave Egypt empty-handed. (They were able to take with them all their flocks (Exodus 12:38) and they left enriched having demanded and received from their neighbours silver and gold jewellery and clothes (Exodus 12:35,36). Yet despite all the evidence that their escape from Egypt was God’s doing (plagues, crossing of the Red Sea), the people had barely left their oppressors behind when they began to complain.  First it was the lack water, then, within two months of leaving Egypt they were complaining again: “If only we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:3)

In response, God provided the manna and the quail. Deuteronomy interprets this 

as a lesson that will help them to understand “that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (8;3).

Later when water is short, the Israelites again complain: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” and Moses accuses them of putting God to the test (Exodus 17:2,3). This event is referred to in Deuteronomy which teaches: “Do not put the LORD your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah” (6:16).

Worst of all, when Moses was communing with God on Mount Sinai, the Israelites felt abandoned – by him, but most of all by God.  They gathered all their gold, fashioned a golden calf – a god that was no god – and worshipped it – breaking the first and most significant commandment. When the Israelites prepare to enter the promised land Moses warns them: “you shall not bow down to their gods, or worship them. You shall worship the LORD your God, and I will bless your bread and your water; and I will take sickness away from among you (6:24, 13).

Both the Israelites and Jesus face other tests (Luke 4:13), but these are the those that the evangelists see fit to record. Jesus responds: One shall not live by bread alone, worship the Lord your God and serve only him, and do not put the Lord your God to the test. By his reactions to the tests he faced in the desert, Jesus models that there is a different way to respond to testing situations, a way that demonstrates confidence in God and an understanding that it is through trust in God, not trust in humankind or in one’s own power that one finds true strength.

The season of Lent is not an opportunity to test our own strength, but a time to test the strength of our confidence in God, to show our willingness to let God direct our way and to determine not to be governed by possessions, by a desire for comfort or by a need for security. 

If we give something during Lent it is to see how we react when we are denied some of life’s comforts, to observe our weaknesses and to learn to trust that God will see us through.

Perhaps the most important thing to note is that Jesus’ time in the wilderness is not of his own choosing. He is led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. We observe the season of Lent as a reminder of Jesus’ experience, but that does not mean that our practice at this time should be of our choosing, but rather it should be our response to the prompting of the Holy Spirit revealing what we should give up, what aspects of our behaviour most need examining and what aspects of our relationship with God most need improving.

Perhaps we should emerge at Easter – not stronger but weaker, more vulnerable, more aware of our shortcomings, and more willing to rely on God (not ourselves) to put things right.  

We should ask ourselves is our Lenten practice about what we can do for God or what God can do for us?