A Time for Spiritual Self-Examination

Last Wednesday, the Church shifted gears and entered a new season — Lent. Traditionally, Lent has especially been given to penitential watching in prayer for the approaching sacrifice of our Lord’s life on the Cross of Good Friday. It is a season for revelation, questions and decision — the revealing of God’s power and majesty in the person of Jesus, the questions of what this means for us and decisions about how we will respond to the love of God revealed in the Gospel story.

Although He was committed to God’s plan for Him from the moment of His baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus did not immediately experience a series of successive triumphs. His life was a drama of real existence like ours. If this had not been so, He would be no real Savior for us. God knew that if Jesus was to lead us to new life, He must face the same demons that threaten to undo us — the human desire to live independently of God, to manage our own affairs, to throw off any limits to our freedom. Rebellion and disobedience — can any of us say we are not guilty of ever taking our liberty from God?

So, Jesus went out into the wilderness to wrestle not with a Satan outside, but with a demon within: a demon that fueled His immense personal power and that had to be tamed, disciplined and directed. The wild beasts that Mark mentions are Jesus’ own: His stunning personal attractiveness, His forceful physical presence, His tremendous self-confidence — these are the beasts that had to be trained and directed to the fulfillment of God’s purposes.

And Christians know what it is to battle against these same wild beasts and to withstand the temptations of the Satan within. Each of us has been given power and energy and our task as followers of Jesus is to direct these gifts to be of service to God. Time and again, we face the choice between self and God. However much these choices seem to be the wilderness, we, like Jesus, are sent there by the Spirit: sent there to forge out our faith in the crucible of struggle, sent there to learn to enthrone God in our hearts, sent there to build a faith that is not afraid to follow Jesus and give of our self in service to God and others — and all for the glory of God, who gave Himself for us. Have a blessed Lent.