First Sunday in Lent 2010
“Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God.”
Grant us, Lord, to begin this period of Christian warfare by holy fasting;
so that we who are about to fight against the spirits of evil
may be helped and defended by self-denial, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Wednesday: Wednesday: Evening Prayer 5:45, Low Mass 6pm, and Bible study 6:45 on the Gospel of St. John (picking up at John 4:1).
Next Sunday February 28th, Second Sunday in Lent, Morning Prayer at 9:30am; Choral Mass at 11am.
Reflections: Our Gospel tells us the events of Our Lord’s 40 days of Fast and the subsequent encounter with Satan, the spiritual overlord of this world. There are so many points for reflection within this, a lifetime of study. But what I would like to do is make the shift from our human fleshly perspective of these events, to that of Heaven and the Unseen World. We naturally understand these stories from our own point of view … how we might experience such adventures and trials (which is a noble exercise for sure) and miss the larger picture on the Cosmic scale and beyond. First it is important to follow the flow of unfolding events. And they are real events and not intended to be read as allegories or parables. The vast majority of Biblical scholars agree that the reported the events in Jesus’ ministry are just that … eye witness accounts of actual happenings.
So … just before Jesus “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness”, what had happened? He had been baptized by John Baptist and a huge Seen and Unseen reality event occurred. Jesus, the perfect man, the second Adam, while redeeming water baptism for us, had the Fullness of the Holy Ghost descend upon Him … that is come down from the heavenly realms and enter Fully into Him. And all this was sealed by the Father Almighty declaring His identity as the Second Person of the Trinity. “This is My Son in Whom I am well pleased.” Now that’s Who walked into the wilderness to pray and commune with His Father for 40 days and nights in preparation for the encounter with the resident spiritual overlord of the earth. Can you just imagine that person?! No lightweight I assure you … but the heaviest of heavy weights. Filled with the Full weight of Glory as C S Lewis might put it. He was God, the Logos and Word among us.
We tend to see such a fasting pilgrimage as full of suffering and deprivation, as surely it would be for us mere men. But Scripture doesn’t tell us that Jesus suffered … just that afterwards He was hungry, understandably so. The fasting was a time of turning down the demands and voice of His body so that His attention could be totally towards His Father God. (and that’s certainly a Lenten lesson for us) So after this time of pure communing with His Father through the Fullness of the Holy Ghost, what kind of magnificent and glorious Being do you think was waiting for the approach of the mightiest fallen angel, Satan? The most intelligent and spiritually powerful being on earth, hereto for, presuming to attempt to “make a deal with”, negotiate with, over power with lies … the very Creator of the Worlds filled with the fullness of the Holy Ghost.
Again from our perspective it might seem nip and tuck … because it sure would be for us. We see the story from the perspective of the man and not the Divinity. No thank you to food for a starving body. No thank you to total invulnerability to any human suffering. No thank you to rule over the whole earth. Only the greatest of the Saints could withstand such offers, such temptations. For us, there would be no contest. We’d be lost.
But it wasn’t us, it was Him in all His pre-Ascension Glory that allowed that traitor to approach, to even converse with Him. So I don’t think it was a struggle for Our Lord. I suppose His body may have yearned, but it could wait for the coming angels. What happened was as always, Our Lord serving notice to a very real Satan that his rebellion was doomed, and giving us a life saving lesson in recognizing and avoiding Satan’s traps. All of it unfolded in His purpose, Grace and Mercy.
The whole journey to Calvary and through death to Resurrection … was to satisfy our debt to a totally Righteous God so that now we can commune with Him in Spirit and Truth. Because God in His three Persons could atone for us, we, every one of us, can be restored to God’s intended purpose and Glory for us. We couldn’t possibly do this. God Almighty the Triune God did it for us. To be able to glimpse the activities of heaven, the Holy Motions, can free us to soar in the freedom of redeemed souls adopted by God Almighty for eternal life.