Theological Truth: Lent is a season of hope founded on the voice that beckons to us, “You are my beloved”
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Great Wall of China… over 13,000 miles.
The Great Barrier Reef… over 1,400 miles.
The Great Litany? Over ten minutes! Fifteen when it’s chanted! Is that why
we call it “Great?” And why do we say (chant) it on the first Sunday in Lent
every year?
Well, let me start by saying it’s definitely not some sort of punishment…(Yes.
I have heard the whispers. I have felt the eye rolls! I know Tom Bell’s dad’s
joke: “From chanting the Great Litany: Good Lord, deliver us!” I actually
quite like that line.)
The Great Litany is not “great” because of its length. Nor do we say/chant it
each year as punishment for our lamentable sins and continuing wretchedness, (that’s from the Ash Wednesday liturgy). So why is it “great” and so greatly important?
When you have time, go back and read it (BCP, pg. 148). Notice how vast,
deep, and comprehensive it is, covering all manner of human failure and the
world’s needs. Perhaps it should be called The Grand Litany — as in the Grand
Canyon. Because like the Grand Canyon, the Great Litany inspires awe and respect. It humbles us by reminding us of those things which “in our blindness we cannot or in our weakness dare not” see. It reminds us of our great need to fully rely on the vastness of God’s grace, love, mercy, and compassion. And that’s what Lent is all about!
Our forty-day journey into the wilderness of Lent is not to impress God with
our spiritual exploits. No amount of self-examination and repentance is going
to change God’s mind about you. No amount of “prayer, fasting and self-
denial” will make God love you any more than God already does. Forty days
of 24-hour “reading and meditating on God’s holy word” won’t move the
needle on God’s desire for you to come home. Lent isn’t about what we do, but why we do it.
Lent is about repentance — metanoia — a change of heart; a reorienting of our lives; a realization of where, how, when, and what diverts us from following
Christ, of walking the way of Love. Lent provides us with an opportunity to
take stock and to take action. Not to change God’s mind about us, but for us to turn our hearts and lives back over to God. And sometimes the best place to
reflect with purpose and listen without distraction is in the wilderness.
Mark’s Gospel (as is his custom) gives a very succinct version of Jesus’
temptation in the wilderness: “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by
Satan; and he was with wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Not a lot to
go on, but enough to realize that what happens to Jesus, happens to all of us.
Notice that the forty days in the wilderness echoes the forty years the Israelites
spent wandering in the wilderness after Yahweh saved them from Pharoah.
Similarly, their wilderness adventure happened after they had crossed through the Red Sea, just as Jesus is driven by the Spirit immediately after his baptism. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to us that life after baptism involves temptation.
The essential thing for us to remember is that the Love of God precedes and follows everything. Before his temptations in the wilderness, as Jesus is coming out of the waters of his Baptism, after the heavens are torn apart and the Spirit descends on him, Jesus hears God’s voice say: “You are my Son, the
Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus enters the wilderness of
temptation with this truth ringing in his ears, reverberating through his life.
It sounds a lot like what we proclaimed to Noah after his baptism last Sunday:
“You are sealed by the Holy Spirit…and marked as Christ’s own forever.” As
we go into our Lenten wilderness, it’s imperative that we begin with this
assurance. We are God’s sons and daughters, God’s beloved. We have been
sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. With that hope,
with that joy, with that Good News, we can face Satan’s temptations; we can be with the wild beasts; we can look forward to angels waiting on us.
We don’t need Lent to give us time to face temptations. It doesn’t take a
sojourn in the wilderness for the beasts to attack us. We are fallen creatures in
a broken world. And while some of the temptations come from evil forces
outside of us, many of the beasts are inside us. We struggle to trust in God
rather than ourselves. We are easily distracted by promises of wealth and
power. We too quickly resort to anger, violence, bigotry and hatred. We are
slow to forgive, quick to blame. We too readily make God in our own image,
rather than living into God’s image.
Sometimes the temptations and attacks come in times of personal hardship.
Like when a loved one is battling a life-threatening illness, and there’s a
temptation to give up on God, to doubt ourselves, to wonder if we are all alone.
In such times, we are likely to be attacked by the wild beasts of anger, envy,
despair and fear. And then…angels appear to wait on us. Maybe with a simple
phone call to check in. Or a homemade lasagna. Or cards in the mailbox. All
of them, heavenly messages of the Love that made us, sustains, and calls us
home.
