'The Spirit sent Jesus out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness for forty days’ Mark 1:12
Brothers and sisters, we have begun our journey through Lent. I was thinking the other day what would make this a good Lent, in fact, what would make this the best Lent ever for me and the people of our parish? Maybe it would be if we got rid of all the vices? If we listed them out, and then over the course of the next forty days we dealt with each one. That would be a good Lent! Or, what about if we all decided to increase our prayer? We set aside more time each day and we all prayed for longer and went deeper. That would be a good Lent! Or, what about if we decided to have more generous hearts and through almsgiving we gave away more to charity and to those in need than ever before? That would be a good Lent! If you have decided to do any of those things, fantastic crack on, but I think there is a way to have an even better Lent. A way that if we follow it, will not just make a difference over the next forty days, but over the next forty years. What would make a great Lent is if we all learned to trust God fully and completely; that would be an amazing Lent.
Now, during the summer we studied through the first part of the Book of Exodus. If you’ve got a Lent devotional you’ll be able to recap what we did, but also get a sneak peak of what we’ll be looking at this coming summer in the second half of the book. However, just to give you bit of a trailer—perhaps even a spoiler—I’m going to give you the key to the second half of Exodus, because it impacts on today’s Gospel reading (Mark 1:12-15). As we know God rescued His people out of slavery in Egypt, through the desert, and across the Red Sea. The plan all along had been to freely worship God, and then go to the promised land. However, when the Jewish people arrived at the promised land, they sent in spies to check out the people who are already there and the spies come back and basically say ‘We can’t do this the people are too big, their armies are too strong’. If you’ve read the story up to this point, you might imagine God’s reply: ’Well, yes, they are too big, they are too strong, you can’t do this but you’re forgetting already what just happened! Who defeated the world’s superpower?’ ‘You did, God!’ ‘And what did you have to do—apart from eat lamb on a particular night?’ ‘Nothing, you did everything, God’. ‘So, maybe trust me that I can sort this out to?’ Do you know what God’s people said? ‘No, it’s far too scary’! So what happened next is God lead them out into the wilderness for the next forty years. Why? So that they could learn to trust Him once again. He will feed them, He will protect them, He will lead them, and slowly—ever so slowly—the people will learn to trust God. Ok, so that is what the forty years was all about, and when Jesus goes out into the desert for forty days He is reminding everyone of that story, that they are to trust God again, and that is where the forty days of Lent come from. Lent, therefore, from the very beginning, has been about learning to trust God even more. That’s what the three classic Lenten activities are for! More prayer, so that in spending more time with God, we might learn to trust Him more. Fasting from things we normally rely on—like alcohol and money—might force us to rely on—to trust in—God instead. Going out to serve others, and finding in serving difficult people and situations which we can’t control, that instead we trust God more and more, that He can help us through. Lent is about learning to trust God more and more deeply.
If you’ve been around the parish for a little while you’ll know that the writings of C.S. Lewis have had a big impact on me; even, under God, bringing me to faith. It’ll then be no surprise that I’ve started to read the Narnia books to Amelie—my four year old daughter. Of course, we started with ‘The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe’, or ‘Lucy and the Lion’ as Amelie calls it. These books are genius for they present the all too familiar story of the bible to us in a slightly different way, and—in the process—help us to learn to trust God; in fact if you’re not reading a book for Lent why not try ‘Lucy and the Lion’! In the book, Jesus is represented by a lion called Aslan and when the children find out, Susan, the eldest girl says: “Lion. I'd thought he was a man. Is he - quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.” […] "Safe?" said Mr Beaver; "don't you hear what. Mrs Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.” Behind Susan’s question is the reason why all of us struggle to trust God: we’re not sure He is safe, we’re not sure that if we trust Him He won’t carry us off on adventure which we can’t handle on our own. Like the Israelites on the border of the promise land God might take us somewhere or ask us to do something we can’t control, we can’t manage. For, as the children are told at the end of the book, Aslan isn’t a tame lion. We want a God who is tame, who acts only in ways we can understand, only in ways in which we can manage or control. But God is far from tame and that is why we can find trusting Him is a challenge. Will we trust His mercy and crucially will we trust His justice? Of course, when we go wrong we want mercy but when others go wrong and hurt us we want justice. The key, however, is to trust Him in His mercy and in His justice. Our first reading (Genesis 9:8-15) is a case in point. Every kid loves the story of Noah’s ark. It’s in every kids bible, after all there is a boat, and some animals, and a rainbow. When Amelie was young we even found M&S were selling a beautiful wooden ark; we still have it to this day. However, read the story as an adult and we might begin to wonder. Sure there is a boat, because God sends His justice and floods the world most people who are guilty of terrible crimes are drowned. Sure, anyone can be saved, if they trust God and get on the boat, but very few people do. Will we trust God in His justice? That what He did then, and what He does now is right and just? Our second reading (1 Peter 3:18-22) shows the other side, God’s mercy. In the second reading Peter tell us where Jesus went between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. He says: ‘After being made alive, [Jesus] went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits – to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.’ Jesus goes down to Hell and preaches to those imprisoned there for their terrible crimes, Jesus gives them a chance to be rescued, to be saved. When God reaches out in mercy to those who have acted wrongly, will we trust Him even if we’d rather He threw the book at the wrong-doers? God isn’t a tame God. We can’t control Him, He isn’t safe, He doesn’t act like us, and He won’t do what we want Him to. But, if we know His heart, if we allow our hearts to be freed from our fear, freed from our addictions, freed from needing to be in control, then we will come to understand what the children of Narnia come to understand: 'he isn't safe. But he's good’.
This Lent let me encourage you to make more time to pray. Let me encourage you to fight against your vices. Let me encourage you to give more generously to those in need. But do it for the right reason. Don’t pray just for better mental health, though it may help with that. Don’t fight against your vices just to please your partner, though it may do that. Don’t give more generously just so there is a strong community around about you, though that may be the result. Do all these things for the primary reason that done in the right way they will help you to trust God more that come what may He will do right by you and all who trust Him. Learning to trust God, that though he isn’t safe, though He isn’t tame, he is good. If you do that, then I guarantee you that you will have the best Lent ever, one that will change your whole life. Amen (from Fr Mike).