Rev. Justin Cheng
The story of Jesus in the wilderness takes place immediately after his baptism. You may recall that at his baptism, Jesus heard the voice of his Father calling him his beloved Son. After that affirmation and expression of grace, Jesus enters the wilderness.

This is the challenge that not only Jesus faced but all of us in life, for we receive the words of affirmation and grace, we receive the good news that we are beloved by God, that we are infinitely precious and loved by the Holy One, and yet we enter our lives knowing that things are no so simple. We don’t get what we want, simply because we are loved. Not only that, we experience everything that creatures of this world experience, yes, we experience moments of joy and peace, but we experience moments of loss, moments of suffering and pain. Being loved by God does not mean a life free from that, and as much as we might not wish it that to be so, that is the reality we face.

And that is the heart of the temptations the devil present to Jesus. For Jesus is the beloved Son of God, and he receives the delight, the grace, the love of God, perfectly and completely. And yet, he receives, like all of us, nothing more than that eternal, infinite love. He will not receive freedom from his own bodily needs, such as hunger, thirst and rest, which is represented by the first temptation. He will not receive safety from the dangers that pose a threat to his body, that is represented by the second, he will not receive protection from the rejection other humans may or will have against his message. If you look at all three temptations that the devil presents to Jesus, they are all about tempting Jesus to deny his own humanity. For being human means being creaturely, it means having bodily needs such as hunger, thirst and rest, it means living in a world that is not always safe or free from danger, it means living in relationships with other humans where one can put one at risk for being rejected. In short to be human is to be vulnerable. And Satan tempts Jesus to reject vulnerability, to reject his own humanity.

Jesus overcomes these temptations not by denying his humanity or his creatureness, but by grounding himself in God’s infinite love. For we can only be truly human, embracing all its joys and its brokenness, by grounding ourselves of divine love. We do have bodily needs but we turn to God who provides and sustains us, feeding us not only with physical bread that nourishes our bodies, but with the eternal bread of life that satisfies our souls. We live and walk in trust, not testing God to save us from every risk, but working with God to care for those who have suffered and were maimed by life’s injuries. And we turn to God who embraces us with love even when we are rejected by others.

Lent then is about turning to God. And as we reflect on Jesus turning and grounding himself in God in the gospel, so we take this season as an opportunity to turn to and ground oneself in God. We know what many people talk about in Lent, some of us talk about giving something up or fasting, others talk about taking something on. Whatever you do, remember the purpose of Lent. It is not about depriving oneself, it is certainly not about suffering for suffering’s sake. It’s about turning to God. And for us, turning to God is not doom and gloom, but the opposite, it is the ultimate cause of our joy, happiness and fulfillment. Lent is only no fun, if you think God, is no fun. Indeed, it is not just that turning to God makes us happy and fulfilled, we discover in our Lenten journey that God is ultimately the only source of our happiness and fulfillment. While we begin Lent with Jesus in the wilderness, the next four weeks, we will hear not stories of gloom and doom in the gospels, but stories of joy, delight and wonder. In a few weeks, we will hear the encounter of Jesus and the Samaritan Woman in which the Woman will hear that Jesus offers the living water that quenches our eternal thirst. After that we will hear the story of the healing of the blind man in which we will discover Jesus as the Great Physician and Healer who tends and binds up our wounds. And just before Holy Week on the fifth Sunday, we will marvel at the raising of Lazarus, in which we will discover that Jesus brings life even from the grave. Our Lenten journey is a journey deep into the heart of God, and it is a journey where we discover and rediscover the God who loves us, who delights us, and holds us ever more. Amen.