First Sunday of Lent
Scripture:
Deuteronomy 26:4-10
Romans 10:8-13
Luke 4:1-13
Reflection:
Our Desert Journey Begins
Our first Sunday of Lent always brings us to the desert where Jesus is tempted. On Ash Wednesday our foreheads were marked, ‘Remember man that you are dust and unto dust you shall return’, sobering words spoken to Adam by God as he exits the garden. But no more can we wash the meaning of the ashes from our forehead than can we forget that the dirt to which we shall return is so beautifully molded by God, delightfully fashioned into our individuality and uniqueness. We are God’s treasure. The artist of Chartres cathedral who fashioned the image of Adam sleeping in God’s arms tells us this without using words. He reminds us of the promise of God’s love for each of us, a love rich in fidelity and abounding in kindness. His carving says that it is after the fall when God leaves the garden to check on his children; God picks up Adam, God picks up Eve, and He hugs them and loves them as they sleep.
We are in the desert with Jesus. Like the ashes it also has a beautiful symbol full of hidden hope and love. Deuteronomy shows both sides of the desert: Abraham is a wandering man in a foreign land, an alien, but God surprises him with descendants like the sand of the seashore and the stars of the sky. He becomes a nation! Egypt became a place of suffering, a desert for Israel, but God led them out and they passed over from death to new life! Miriam with her tambourine led Israel in a dance, ‘Let us sing to the Lord; he has covered himself in glory’. And in the long Exodus journey to the promised land, a desert journey, there awaits a land flowing with milk and honey.
The desert is fertile.
None of us could see the ashes that were placed upon our foreheads, could we? We could see our neighbors, our family, the strangers we passed on Wednesday. Paul says today there is no distinction between Jew or Greek, indeed, no distinction between any of us at all, ‘man, woman you are dust and to dust you shall return’. God’s creative and saving love is for all, our ashes are not only for ourselves, we share them together.
We have gone into the desert to begin our journey and to passover with Our Lord from death to the life of the Risen One, the one who will be the First Born from among the dead. The desert will become a place transformed, the closed gate to the Beautiful Garden will be opened, a place perhaps to pause and stare as our journey led by the Good Shepherd continues on to its end at the banquet table in our Father’s house?
Be attentive on the Lenten journey that Our God is a God of consolation. Love does not disappear, hope is always with us, the desert brings forth life. The tempter of our human nature who even uses truth to bad purpose as we hear in the gospel, deals in desolation, making hope and love seem out of reach. Speak to Jesus on the journey through our desert these days. Humbly ask the one tempted in the desert for protection from desolation in our deserts. Let us break out the tambourine on occasion, let us laugh with Sarah and the holy ones who have gone before us and those who surround us. Let us help each other to know God’s consolation in our midst, even in the desert.
Fr. William Murphy, CP, is a member of Immaculate Conception Community in Jamaica, New York.