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Happy Lent!
Does that sound strange? Happy and Lent in the same sentence? We tend to think of Lent as a somber time, a time of sackcloth and ashes.
For many of us “repent” was the goal of Lent. Repent meaningto stop sinning, change, be better, give up something so that the suffering will remind you of Jesus. Whatever you do, do not say “Alleluia!” Lent and happy didn’t really go together for most of us.
Today's readings point us to the possibility of a “Happy Lent.” I don’t mean a shallow happiness in getting or experiencing something that is fleeting. I mean a deep abiding happiness that speaks to the very essence of our being.
Today’s Gospel gives us a template. Mark doesn’t give us many details but we do know that Jesus is baptized in the Jordan river. As he was coming out of the water he heard God’s voice saying “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus’s baptism establishes his true identity. He is the beloved Child of God whom God loves deeply. Jesus needed to know this, he needed to know who he is as he stepped out into the world. God’s beloved, unconditionally loved.
Don’t we, too, need to know this? This is the “repentance” or turning we might adopt during this holy season of Lent. Returning to our baptism and remembering that we are beloved children of God, unconditionally loved. Lent is not a time to work hard at proving God’s love for us or our love for God, it’s not a personal improvement project so that God will love us. Jesus shows us this morning that Lent, the time when we step back and reflect on our lives as His followers, is a time to return to our true identity.
Rather than working hard at proving our goodness to God, how about if we trust that God loves us, deeply and unconditionally. If we can trust in God’s love, we don’t need to be right all the time. We don’t need to hold on to grudges and old resentments. We don’t need to believe that there isn’t enough to go around so I had better protect my piece of the pie.
Maybe our first practice this Lent might be spending time in the quiet with God, allowing ourselves to be immersed in the divine presence of love. Asking for the grace to trust in that love. Hearing the words Jesus heard in his own baptism: “You are my beloved child. In you I am well pleased.”
Jesus is fully human. His life, like ours, isn’t static. After hearing those words, he is immediately led into the wilderness. He doesn’t choose to go there. In fact, he is led there by the Spirit of God. He is led into the world with the assurance that he is beloved. And in that wilderness there are forces that try to rob him of his identity as the beloved. They tempt him to think his happiness lies elsewhere, that he doesn’t need that love, that he isn’t enough, and he needs to find ways to make himself whole.
Perhaps the second practice of Lent this year might be facing down the wild beasts, the demons in our own lives that try to rob us of our identity as God’s beloved. Who or what are the demons in your life? Who or what tells you that you are not good enough, that you don’t deserve love, that you have to strive for more or better or different to measure up? Lent is a time for us to face those demons and to know that they are not the voice of God. They are the voice of shame and doubt and temptation.
Notice in Mark’s account of the temptation we are never told that Satan went away or that Jesus conquered the beasts. He stayed true to his identity in the midst of them. Perhaps our prayer this lent might be to name the demons in our own lives and to ask God for the grace to stay true to our own identity as God’s beloved even as the demons swirl around us.
There are also angels. Mark tells us that Jesus was “with the wild beasts: and the angels waited on him.” Who are the angels in your life? Who is it that helps you know that you are loved, that you are precious in God’s eyes? Who or what in your life reminds you of your baptismal promise to love God and to put your trust in God’s love for you and all creation? Who walks through the wilderness with you?
As we face the demons that threaten to draw us away from God, giving thanks for the angels that minister to our beloved selves is the counterpart. Perhaps that’s what Jesus means when he calls his followers to “repent.” He is urging us to turn toward God, to trust that we are God’s beloved, and to turn away from the demons that try to rob us of that identity. And then to go out and spread that Good News. The Good News that from the time of Noah God has established a covenant with humanity. A promise to never abandon us, to be with us in the wilderness of our lives, to send angels to minister to us, and in Jesus, to come among us and share the very essence of who we are as God’s beloved creation.
Today we begin our own intentional pilgrimage through the wilderness. Lent is not a time when we take control of our lives and become something different. It’s a time when we sink deeply into the silence with God letting ourselves be loved. A time to face the demons that try to convince us that that love is not enough. A time to give thanks for the angels that minister to our tender souls when we are tempted to give in to those demons and believe we are not lovable as we are. And then it’s a time to share that Good News by being angels to one another.
Happy Lent!
The Rev. Mary Haggerty
Trinity Episcopal Church, De Soto MO
1st Sunday in Lent, February 18, 2024
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