1 Lent/Year B – February 18, 2024
Genesis 9:8-17, Psalm 25:1-9, 1 Peter 3:18-22, Mark 1:9-15
Opening Prayer: God of wilderness and water, your Son was baptized and tempted as we are. Guide us through this season, that we may not avoid struggle, but open ourselves to blessing, through the cleansing depths of repentance and the heaven-rending words of the Spirit. Amen.
(https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/prayers.php?id=71)
Our gospel of Mark reading today opens with a familiar setting, once again, that begins with the baptism of Jesus. Just last week we were reminded of these same words from the beginning of the Epiphany Season, as well as the variation of the same scripture just last Sunday, on the final Sunday of the season of Epiphany… Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
As we begin this new season of the church year, the season of Lent…we, who have been attending Episcopal Church services for several years, will most likely associate this season with a lot of familiar traditions, scriptures, and service rituals….
On the night before Lent begins, we have our Shrove Tuesday Pancake Supper, its name coming from the Germanic-Old English word “shrive,” meaning absolve, and it is the last day of the liturgical season historically known as Shrovetide. Because it comes directly before Lent, a season of fasting and penitence, this was the day that Christians would go to be “shriven” by their confessor. Shrove Tuesday also became a day for pre-fasting indulgence. In particular, the need to use up rich ingredients such as butter, milk, sugar and eggs before Lent gave rise to the tradition of eating pancakes on this day. (episcopalchurch.org – 2018)
The season of Lent officially begins on Ash Wednesday with the imposition of ashes in the shape of the cross on our foreheads, and the invitation, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word. Other familiar highlights of this season include the color purple, the Great Litany that we prayed at the start of the service, no alleluia’s until Easter, Holy Week observances…Palm Sunday processions, Maundy Thursday foot washing, Good Friday passion readings, Holy Saturday, a day of silence before the Resurrection Sunday/Easter day!
What has really jumped out at me, as we begin the season of Lent in 2024…are the familiar marks of the cross upon our foreheads at the time of our baptisms, and as we begin the season of Lent.
At the time of our baptisms, we mark a beginning…the priest makes the sign of the cross on our forehead with the Chrism oil and says these words… you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever. Amen.
When our foreheads are marked with ashes in the shape of a cross on Ash Wednesday, our thoughts turn towards our mortality, our end of life when the priest says these words… Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Yet, in both of these familiar and seemingly different times and seasons of our lives…we are marked as Christ’s own forever…in life and in death. In all our beginnings and in all our endings…in everything that is familiar…and in everything that is unfamiliar to us…
I think that is important for us to consider…as we seek to not only rejoice in those familiar times when surely we know God is present…but to learn to trust that God is present with us, even in those times in our lives when we are challenged to navigate the unfamiliar times, the temptations and trials of this world that cause us to despair, or make us hesitate to believe that God is about to show us anything new…
Lent is a good season to practice this…through self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy Word…we can come to trust in a God who is present, in all times, in all places…in life and in death…in all our beginnings and in all our endings…in everything that is familiar…and in everything that is unfamiliar to us…
It is often in the unfamiliar territory, in the wilderness times of our lives, when we do have the opportunity to grow spiritually, and experience God anew in our own lives, and in the people and places that surround us now, and in every stage of our lives…
But it’s not always easy to let go of the familiar, to enter into the unfamiliar spaces…yet I find hope and comfort in today’s gospel message that begins with Jesus’ baptism, and the voice from heaven affirming Jesus’ identity, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him…
I like to believe that God’s angels, God’s messengers of hope are always there to attend to our temptations, our hurts, our doubts, our need for guidance when we are thrust into times of unknowing and uncertainty…and as we intentionally set out to walk a new, unfamiliar path, in hopes of living a more authentic life, as the beloved child of God we were created to be…and as a beloved child of God, who was named and marked as Christ’s own forever…
As we begin this season of Lent anew…one theme that is often highlighted, is our need to let go of some things…let go of some things that get in the way of our relationship with God and one another…and that might mean…we need to let go of some of the “familiar things”…
I close this morning, with a reflection on Letting go of the FAMILIAR, written by Bishop Rob Wright, from the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta…
The Spirit “drove” Jesus into the wilderness and away from the familiar for a season. Spirit herded/hearted him away from home and routine, placing him among “wild beasts” and in the hands of attentive “angels.” He was at the same time, vulnerable and cared for.
Adventures with God are always like that, God subtracts and then God multiplies. That’s fine for Jesus and his adventure, you might say, but who wants to leave the familiar, really?
Remember whether we’re talking work, marriage, learning or life with God, the familiar should come with a warning label! The familiar can become a rut and a rut can become a grave. If we’re not careful we can adventure-proof our lives and make them memorials to who we and God formerly were rather than living testimonies to who we and God are right now.
Consider the wisdom of the garden spider, the web she weaves serves her purposes, it never snares her. I’ll just bet that if we were to ask Jesus about his wilderness of the unfamiliar, he would tell us that it was worth it.
Worth it because new trust in God grows in new circumstances. Worth it because there’s blessing to receive even and especially in loss. Worth it because
God’s wisdom about how to grow our souls is wiser than our best thinking. Worth it because God relishes opportunities to show us the abundance in what we believed to be desolate places.
What the unfamiliar, disorienting, and even fearful patches of life can teach us, is the time is always right to trust God anew. Remember: What is unfamiliar to us isn’t unfamiliar to God!
Prayer/Hymn (H) 559
1 Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
o’er the world’s tempestuous sea;
guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us,
for we have no help but thee,
yet possessing every blessing,
if our God our Father be.
2 Savior, breathe forgiveness o’er us;
all our weakness thou dost know;
thou didst tread this earth before us;
thou didst feel its keenest woe;
yet unfearing, persevering,
to thy passion thou didst go.
3 Spirit of our God, descending,
fill our hearts with heavenly joy;
love with every passion blending,
pleasure that can never cloy;
thus provided, pardoned, guided,
nothing can our peace destroy.
Rev Julie Platson
St Peter’s by the Sea Episcopal Church
Sitka, Alaska