Bearing the Light

A Sermon preached at St. Augustine's Church, Wiesbaden on Sunday 30th March, 2014

Fourth Sunday in Lent: 1 Samuel 16:1-13, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41, Psalm 23

This week’s gospel reading continues our series of surprising encounters. After Nicodemus at night and the Woman at the Well at high noon we now meet the man born blind, a man who has known only darkness until he meets the Christ.

When John recounts events in Jesus’ life, we need to listen to and understand the stories and the speeches at more than one level. Firstly there is what we might call the literal level – what actually happens. In the stories we have been hearing something good happens to people, a deep and often unexpressed need they have is satisfied. Nicodemus, the seeker after the truth, finds a lot more truth than he had expected. The Samaritan woman, an outcast, finds new hope and new life, and is reintegrated into her society. A man born blind, with no hope of seeing again, is healed of his physical ailment and discovers a renewed faith and courage. If this Good News was all we took from the reading, then it would be enough. Jesus’ whole life, especially his acts of love and compassion as well as his words of teaching, are how the Good News of God’s love was and is proclaimed. But there is more!

Jesus often also makes a moral or ethical point. Here it is a very important point indeed – it was not as a result of sin, neither the man’s nor his parents’, that the man was born blind. Disabilities, illnesses, disasters, and tragedies are not divine punishments for sin. Bad things also happen to good people. Jesus makes a similar point in Luke’s gospel - the eighteen people who had been killed when a tower, the tower of Siloam, fell on them were no “worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem.” (Luke 13:4) That’s why I really have a problem with preachers who see a disease like AIDS as God’s punishment or a natural catastrophe such as Hurricane Katrina as divine retribution. They seem to be wilfully ignoring Jesus’ teaching. I would call that spiritual blindness and while physical blindness is never caused by sin, spiritual blindness is sinful. What Jesus does say however is that tragedies and suffering, while not caused by God, can still be an opportunity to reveal God’s works of love – as Jesus does in healing the man born blind, or as many good and faithful people do when they take care of the sick or help those severely affected by a natural or man-made disaster.

Each event is however also a sign of who Jesus is, a demonstration of his power and authority, and proof of where this power comes from. He is the Messiah, he is sent from God, and he has the power even to heal a man blind from birth. As the man born blind says: “If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” According to the prophet Isaiah, the Messiah will be “given … as a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind.” (Isaiah 42:6-7) Jesus’ actions in this passage are the visible and tangible fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy – the proof that he is the light of the world.

Then finally, in the reactions of the people Jesus meets and talks to, we are taught something about faith. In today’s narrative John compares and contrasts the reactions of the man born blind with the reactions of the Pharisees. The man born blind just goes from strength to strength. He knows little yet learns much. With each questioning and hostile interrogation his faith and understanding deepen and grow: it is as if the light he has received is getting brighter and brighter. After his healing Jesus is first simply “the man called Jesus” who had healed him. When the Pharisees question him the first time he calls Jesus a prophet, so someone sent by God. Finally he acknowledges Jesus as the Son of Man, as his Lord, whom he worships.

The man born blind, previously a beggar and wholly dependent on others’ good will, finds new depths of courage. He stands up for Jesus although as a result he is disowned by his parents and rejected by the religious leaders. Thanks to the love he has received, he knows no fear. Reflecting Christ’s light, he has become a light himself, demonstrating faith, courage, love, and hope.

The Pharisees by contrast exhibit very different qualities: doubt, arrogance, rejection, and fear. They may have full physical sight, but in the course of the narrative they see less and less, they become blinder and blinder. They are learned, they have studied scripture intensely, and unfortunately feel therefore that they know everything, which makes them so unwilling to be taught anything new, especially by a formerly blind beggar. They are also fearful, they perceive – rightly - Jesus as a threat to the status quo and to their positions of power. So it is not so much that they cannot see, but that they simply will not see. They actively resist seeing God’s love in Jesus’ actions. The questions they ask both the man born blind and his parents are not questions aimed at understanding, because they know their answer before they ask their question. Instead their intention is to find a reason not to believe and not to learn from this experience.

You will be glad to hear that your vestry is not made up of Pharisees, whatever you may have thought, and that its members are not blind and that they are willing to learn from experience. Last Saturday we took some time out together. We spent time getting to know one another better, studying our role as church leaders, and also trying to learn from recent experience, both bad and good, and from our own mistakes and wrong behavior – because that is what we can change. One thing we worked on was a mutual agreement on how we want to work together and communicate with one another and the parish in the future. We hope this will enable us to be “an example … in speech, life, love, faith and purity,” (1 Timothy 4:12) and allow us to show better than in the past that we “love one another, as Jesus loves us.” (John 15:11) We will publish this once it has been finalized at the next vestry meeting.

We all have this choice. Do we behave like the man born blind or like the Pharisees? Are we willing to learn from experience, to correct our impressions and assumptions, to be willing to see God in others, to marvel at God’s actions, and to trust in God’s love and power even in difficult and dangerous situations?  Or do we think we already know all the answers, are determined not to change, and do not want to see what God is calling us to do and to be? Where do we stand? Do we stand with “the man born blind, in his new found faith and openness to God’s light” or “beside the Pharisees, certain of their own rightness but locked in a darkness of their own devising?”[1]

I am the light of the world, Jesus tells us. According to Genesis, creation, the first creation began with light: “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.” (Genesis 1:3-4) Jesus’ light is the beginning of the new or re-Creation of the world that we also call the kingdom of God or heaven. Its purpose is the transformation of this world into one of light, love, and wholeness. The man born blind was given new light by the light of the world and became himself a bearer of that light. Similarly in the letter to the Ephesians the author tells the Christians in Ephesus that “once you were in darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light.”

That is God’s call to us, to live as children of light, and to behave as bearers of Christ’s light. Like the man born blind we were all in darkness until we met Christ. The powers of evil tried to extinguish Christ’s light on the Cross, instead it came back stronger than before. The Pharisees also try and extinguish the light the man born blind bears for Christ; instead his witness and faith become stronger than before. As Christians we have seen the light. Many of us will have received a candle at our Baptism as a symbol of the light. Our calling is to allow Christ’s light to shine through us into the world, to shine in our faith, in our courage and hope, and in our acts of love and generosity for one another and for all the world.

Amen

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[1] Tom Wright, John for Everyone, Part 1, 146

Surprise, Surprise

A Sermon preached at St. Augustine's, Wiesbaden on Sunday March 23, 2014

Third Sunday in Lent: Exodus 17:1-7, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42, Psalm 95

The lessons we have been, and will be, hearing from during Lent, from the Gospel according to John, are all about encounters and the subsequent conversations between Jesus and various people. And there is always something surprising about these encounters: the person, the circumstances, the result, and/or the timing. Take last week’s encounter with Nicodemus for example. He came to Jesus by night – perhaps because as a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews, a member of their ruling council, he didn’t want his colleagues to see him visiting Jesus. As a scholar and teacher he might also have been studying the Law late at night, and felt the need to find out more about this man who had so clearly come from God. We don’t know.

We do however have a good idea why the Samaritan woman came to the well at noon, when the sun was at its highest and hottest: she came at a time when she would not have to meet anyone else, especially not the other women of her city. With her personal history and reputation, she would not have been acceptable company and she will have wanted to avoid the dirty looks and muttered insults. So it is very surprising indeed that Jesus strikes up a conversation with her. Not only because of her ‘character,’ the fact that she was a woman and a Samaritan should have prevented any form of contact: “How is that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria,” she asks. The Jews looked down on the Samaritans because they worshipped in the wrong place, on the wrong mountain, and because both they and their beliefs were supposedly tainted by pagan intermingling during the long period of occupation of Israel several hundred years earlier. And yet Samaritans often get to play a positive role in the gospels, not just the Good Samaritan, but also this unnamed woman who has a very good claim to the title of “First Missionary.”

But the surprises don’t end with Jesus asking her for a drink. The conversation itself takes some surprising twists and turns. Instead of Jesus receiving living, that is simply running water, from the deep well, he offers her a different kind of living water, the water of divine wisdom and teaching, the water of new life in Christ. Although she doesn’t understand him at first Jesus tells her, and through this story us too, that accepting him as Lord is like having a spring of water bubbling inside us constantly refreshing us with new life.

But first we must get rid of the stale, stagnant water we have been living off before this time, in the case of the Samaritan woman, as Jesus knows to her surprise, she needs to acknowledge and deal with her irregular married or unmarried life. Looking at how she is accepted by her people at the end of this passage, seeing how they willing they are to follow her lead, it looks to me as if Jesus’ intervention will help her heal her relationships. Within a few sentences she changes from being a social outcast, to an evangelist.

But Jesus has some more surprises in store. As I said earlier, the right place and building to worship in was one of the issues that divided the Jews and the Samaritans. Well, surprise, surprise: you can forget about the rivalry between Mount Gerizim and Mount Zion, Jesus tells her. The worship of God was never really tied to one single place, God is not a physical being in need of a house. Instead you will find God in unexpected places, not just in holy people or holy buildings: on a Cross for example, or in bread and wine. At their best, holy sites are simply signposts to the divine. One great human temptation seems to be to make these places, buildings, pictures, statues – whatever – into substitutes for the real thing and to turn them into the objects of worship. 

Probably the greatest surprise for the Samaritan woman, and the one that sets her off running back to her city, back to all those people who would not normally give her the time of day, is a very simple statement on Jesus’ part: “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.” By which he means I am the Messiah you have been waiting for, the one who will proclaim the truth, a prophet, your Lord, the savior of the whole world, God incarnate.

When the disciples return, and are themselves very surprised to see Jesus talking to this woman, Jesus no longer has any need for the food they have brought him, He is so excited by this encounter and by the spiritual hunger he has discovered, so exhilarated by the success of his first missionary, that his physical hunger has gone. The disciples fare no better than the woman at the well in following Jesus’ metaphorical use of the words ‘food’ and ‘harvest.’ It took her a moment to understand the new meaning of living water and it takes them a while to realize that the harvest Jesus is referring to is the harvest of a new crop of believers. This will be the disciples’ mission after the Passion and Resurrection as it is ours today.

The first half of John’s Gospel – after the prologue we all know so well – In the beginning was the word – is called the Book of Signs because it contains a series of signs or miracles that point to Jesus’ divinity and help explain something about his mission. At Cana water is turned to wine, in the course of his ministry several people are healed, five thousand hungry people are fed, Jesus walks on water, and Jesus brings Lazarus back to life. But in some ways the greatest signs are not the supernatural ones. Surprising encounters like the one we heard about today are the even greater miracles. Outcasts are welcomed in, relationships are healed, ordinary things like water, bread, wine take on new meaning as symbols of the divine, and very ordinary people become messengers of God. And that’s very good news for us too, because we are very ordinary people, we don’t have miraculous powers, but we can still be messengers of God and we can still encounter and reach out to the stranger and the outcast just as God, in Jesus, encountered them. 

I see three main lessons for us here in this passage. One is appropriate to this time of Lent and self-examination. What stale or stagnant water do we need to get rid of to make room for the living water that Jesus offers? What relationships do we need to heal? What hurt, whether inflicted or suffered, do we need to acknowledge? Whom do we need to forgive or ask for forgiveness?

The second lesson is the need to focus on mission, on being sent by God to reap what God has sown, to harvest the fields that are ripe for harvesting. I don’t want you all to put on pith helmets and head off for the tropics. But I do want you to remember that neither this building not the money we want you to pledge as part of our stewardship campaign are ends in themselves, they are the means by which we carry out God’s mission. Your pledge and your commitment are how we finance the resources we need so that our worship, community events, Christian formation of the young and not so young, as well as our mission and outreach activities can grow and flourish.

Finally - how can we do the unexpected, how can we surprise Wiesbaden? I’ve met a number of our ecumenical partners this week. One thing they’ve told me is how this church used to be well known for being open and inviting, with open doors and lit windows during the week, not just on a Sunday, and how sad they were that we recently turned in ourselves so much, that we became quite literally ‘introverted.’ Well, let’s surprise them by turning out again. The Kaffeeklatsch initiative that Roxanne Richards and others have started is such a good example. It’s wonderful that it is helping us raise money for our ministry and mission, but I think even more important is the opportunity it offers for encounters and conversation. Jesus discovered a spiritual hunger and thirst in Samaria, well there is a spiritual hunger and thirst today that we can help fill or quench. Let this church be our Well, and the coffee and cake we offer be an opening for a conversation about the Good News we believe in, just as water and food were for Jesus. Let us surprise Wiesbaden with the strength of our witness to the God of love as revealed in Jesus Christ.  

Amen

Faith first!

A Sermon Preached on Sunday, March 16 at St. Augustine's Church, Wiesbaden

Second Sunday in Lent: Genesis 12:1-4a, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, John 3:1-17, Psalm 121

Perhaps it is because it was traditional to give up meat for Lent that the Church gives us such meaty readings to hear and reflect on? In today’s extract from Paul’s Letter to the Romans for example we were introduced to that great Reformation topic: faith vs. works. What makes us righteous before God, our faith or our good works? Paul’s answer is clear, and Martin Luther loved him for it: Faith – “To one who without works trusts (God) such faith is reckoned as righteousness.”

Unfortunately the example Paul chooses, the story we also heard this morning of how God commands Abraham to leave his home and promises to bless him and make of him a great nation, is not so clear cut. Sure, God’s promise comes first – God doesn’t say “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you … and then we’ll talk again and I might have something special for you.” And Abraham certainly shows great faith, great trust in just doing what God commands without knowing where he is going or where this great nation God promises him is going to come from – he’s already 75 years old!. But works still play a role, for as a result of his faith in God and God’s promise he does as commanded, and goes to Canaan. Faith comes first, but faith is followed by ‘good works’ as both a sign, and expression of faith.

Anyway, what Paul is trying to do in his letter to the Romans is not to make a complicated theological point, but to expand God’s Covenant. He wants to lower the bar and remove restrictions so as to welcome all people in. The works that he is arguing so strongly against are the cultic, ritual, and dietary rules of the Law. Paul is fighting the so-called Judaizers, those who insisted that someone must first become a Jew, including being circumcised, before becoming a Christian. In fact that’s what verses 6-12, the section that has been cut out of the reading, if you’ll excuse the pun, is all about: circumcision.

No, Paul says, you don’t have to be or become a Jew, look at Abraham. He was right with God through his faith, not by circumcision and not through dependence on the Law, which didn’t exist at that time, but by virtue of God’s promise. All it takes to become a Christian is faith, faith in one God and trust in God’s promise of new life through God’s only Son, Jesus Christ.

Paul goes on to redefine the membership of Abraham’s family. God’s promise and covenant are guaranteed to all of Abraham’s descendants, but they are no longer just his descendants according to the flesh, no longer just those who adhere too bthe Law, but also “those who share the faith of Abraham.” (Romans 4:16) Anyone can become a Christian; membership in this new covenant people is open to all regardless of nation, gender, economic status, political beliefs, and whom we love. The sole requirement is to believe in God, “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” (Romans 4:17) That is in the God who raised Jesus from the dead, after first sending him to offer us new life, a new creation, and a new birth.

Although the author of the Gospel according to John uses different words, we find the same questions and ideas in today’s gospel. What sets us right with God? What makes us Christians? For a start Nicodemus clearly has the right idea about works when he says, “for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” (John 3:2) Jesus’ works, his miracles, are signs of a deep faith and of God’s presence in him. That is their value and meaning.  

As an aside, having a conversation with Jesus does not seem to be very easy, does it? You never get a straight answer. Here Jesus’ reply, “very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above,” (John 3:3) does not seem to have a lot to do with Nicodemus’ statement about signs and clearly throws him off track. This happens quite often. Later in John’s Gospel (12:20-23) the disciples Philip and Andrew go to Jesus to tell him that some Greeks have asked to see Jesus ….. and “Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” That was probably not quite the reply they were expecting. And Jesus often also responds to a question either with a question of his own or with a parable. This is because Jesus does not just want us to do as we are told, to obey a commandment without thinking. He wants us to understand, to think things through, and to do good deeds out of our inner conviction – out of our faith.

So what does Jesus mean when he tells Nicodemus that no one can see or enter the kingdom of God without being born from above or to use another translation born again? This second birth is one we choose, this rebirth stands for the conscious choice of faith in what is above – God – and in the one who has descended from above, from heaven – the Son of Man.  When John has Jesus emphasize that this new birth is of the Spirit, not of the flesh, it is his way of saying that what counts is the new spiritual rebirth, not the natural birth into a particular tribe or nation. Just like Paul the point he is making is that anyone can join the kingdom of God, not just Jews. Like the wind, the Spirit blows where it chooses. In fact in Hebrew it’s the same word. The Spirit is always on the move and knows no human restrictions.

The idea of being born again reminds me of Jimmy Carter, the 39^th US president between Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan. Especially in Europe people made fun of him both as a peanut farmer and because he was a born again Christian. Looking at his record both as a president, and even more so afterwards with his engagement for global health as well as for peace and reconciliation, I see in him an example for someone who has done very good works and deeds out of a deep and sincere faith. 

Good works flow, or even overflow, from faith. If we believe in a God of love, then the love of the other is the only possible expression of that faith.  If we believe in a God who heals and brings new life, then we will strive to heal and renew the world and everyone in it. If we believe in a God who offers unlimited and unconditional forgiveness, then we will want to forgive those who have hurt us. And if we believe that Jesus was sent not to judge or “condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him," (John 3:17) then we cannot avoid wanting to pass on and proclaim that Good News to the world.

We see this reflected in our service of rebirth, the service through which all Christians are born again of water and Spirit – our Baptism. The first public questions concern our faith, when we, or our parents and godparents on our behalf, were asked: 

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior? Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?[1]

Then and only then – and after the congregation reaffirms their faith using the words of the Apostle’s Creed – come the questions concerning the good works that are an expression and a sign of this faith.

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ? Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself? Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?[2]

Good works are not then a condition for becoming a Christian, nor do we have to belong to a particular nation or group, nor do we have to worship God in any particular way, however much we may like the way we worship! Faith is the sole condition and our good works are a sign of that faith and commitment. Next week you will all receive a letter from me, the senior warden and the treasurer asking you to consider making a financial pledge to this particular part of God’s Church. As we will say in the letter, a pledge is a sign of commitment: of your commitment to God’s church in this place and to the work for God that your pledge makes possible. We want the church of St. Augustine of Canterbury to be a strong witness to God’s love in Wiesbaden by continuing to “proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ.”

Amen

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[1] BCP, 302

[2] BCP, 305

Lenten Discipline

Sermon preached on March 9, 2014 (First Sunday in Lent) at St. Augustine's Church, Wiesbaden

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11, Psalm 32

For some years now there has been a debate about whether it would be better to take something on for Lent, rather than give something up. I bet, at least I would do if I hadn’t given up betting for Lent, that you have heard at least one sermon to this effect. The preacher will have suggested that you take on a spiritual discipline during Lent: perhaps read a devotional book, attend special services, like our weekly ‘Way of the Cross’ devotional service, or participate in Lenten study groups, like our program “LoveLife: Living the Gospel of Love.” And they are right and you should. 

But there is also nothing basically wrong with giving up something for Lent. Like everything we do it will depend on the motivation. There are good reasons, and bad ones. Perhaps you want to share in and relive Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness through a symbolic fast. Maybe you want to test your resolve and commitment. Or you might want to show solidarity with the poor and donate the money saved by fasting from alcohol or chocolate. And of course a fast can be an aid to prayer and reflection. 

But there are also bad reasons, at least in a spiritual context: using it as a form of self-punishment or just for health reasons, for example as a means of losing weight. I also wonder if sometimes we do not use giving up little things to forget the dangers of the big, the real temptations. While we congratulate ourselves on having resisted having a beer, a piece of chocolate, or in my case a bag of potato chips/crisps, we forget about the big temptations that we can so easily fall prey to: putting ourselves and our own desires before the love of God and of the other.

This week’s readings are all about temptations, both those that were resisted and those that were succumbed to. The reading from Genesis reminds us of that first, all too successful temptation in the Garden of Eden. The temptation to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and by doing so, at least that’s what the serpent suggests, to become like God, to gain power through knowledge and wisdom, despite an explicit command from God to the contrary. It’s no surprise then that for Paul this first act of disobedience is the root of all evil, the way in which sin enters the world and with sin, death. Death stands here both for physical death and even more importantly for spiritual death: for separation from God. Not as a punishment but as a result of humanity’s choice to put their own will above God’s.

In a very roundabout and complicated manner Paul compares and contrasts Adam and Jesus. Adam is the one man through whose disobedience death and sin were made possible, a possibility that humanity then made very extensive use of, while Jesus is the one man whose act of grace and righteousness, whose act of love, leads to justification and life for all. Adam’s sin estranged us from God, Paul says, Jesus takes that away and offers us all the chance of a renewed relationship with God.

Jesus’ 40 days and nights in the wilderness show him resisting the temptations that Adam and Eve succumbed to in Paradise and that the people of Israel succumbed to during their 40 year trek through the desert to the Promised Land. It’s no coincidence that all of Jesus’ answers are taken from the book of Deuteronomy that describes their odyssey and in particular from chapters 6-8, which contain God’s promises of blessings for obedience as well as clear warnings not to forget God in prosperity. How strange that we never forget God in adversity? Moses tells the Israelites: “Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today.” (Deut. 8:11)

That’s what the devil or tempter wants Jesus to do of course, to forget God:

-        To rebel against God’s will, to show impatience and to abuse the power Jesus has as the Son of God by turning stones into bread before his time of fasting and preparation is over.

-        The devil wants Jesus to test God’s care and love by throwing himself off the pinnacle of the temple.

-        Finally Jesus is presented with the option of putting power, wealth, and might above the love of God.

In essence all the temptations are about sinning against the one great commandment, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, choosing good over evil, all our soul, choosing life over death, and all our might, choosing God over power, wealth and possessions.

Adam and Eve were unable to resist the temptation to eat the fruit that was good for food, a delight to the eyes, and able to make them wise like God. Out of hunger the Israelites wanted to turn back and return to Egypt, they made themselves little gods, idols, that they could have power over, and they vied for power and influence.

Jesus resists all these temptations on our behalf, he does what Adam and Eve and the Israelites could not do, and he cleans the slate for us. Through disobedience, Adam was unable to fulfill his vocation to till and keep the garden – to be a steward of creation on God’s behalf. Through disobedience, Israel was unable to fulfil its vocation to be a light to the world. By being obedient to his vocation to show us God, to bring salvation, and to be a servant to the world, Jesus gives us the chance to fulfill the vocations God gave to humanity through Adam and the nation of Israel. Humanity is renewed by Jesus’ life, teaching, example, and obedience. Jesus’ act of righteousness and obedience unveils grace and life in the place of sin and death.

Satan, the tempter, the physical presence of evil, wants to stop Jesus from being true to his vocation and to prevent him from carrying out God’s mission, the mission that he has just been commissioned for at his Baptism when the voice from heaven announces that Jesus is “my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17)

The temptations we experience are also meant to distract us, to turn us from the path of servanthood that we committed to at our Baptism, they are meant to stop us from choosing renewal and new life. Baptism does not make us perfect or holy, unfortunately. We have to continue to resist evil. The big, the real temptations are not the little pleasures we try and do without during Lent, but us putting something else above God. Moses’ injunction, “take care that you do not forget the Lord your God,” is still valid.  

So, whether you fast or not, whether you give something up or just take on an extra discipline, use Lent to “renew your repentance and faith.”[1] Own up to the temptations we have not managed to resist in the past, repenting, and asking God for the forgiveness that is guaranteed for all who truly repent.

Follow Jesus into the wilderness and follow his example there. Follow his lead in living by Gods’ word, in trusting God, and in worshiping and serving God alone. Follow Jesus out of the wilderness to Jerusalem and the pain of Good Friday, follow him to the glory of Easter Day, and follow him into the new life and the renewed relationship with God that he came to bring us.

Amen

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[1] BCP (Ash Wednesday Liturgy), 265