Like Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, we will spend 40 days practicing repentance and reflection.

We will give up things in order to remind ourselves that the Lord is all we actually need – he is the one who truly sustains us.

This is a re-centering; this is uncomfortable…and that is exactly the point.

This is supposed to pull us out of our navel-gazing and remind us that

from dust we came and to dust we shall return, but the story did not end there because we are unimaginably loved.

And so as we follow him into this wilderness time……

And in the wilderness we do a two things…

We acknowledge Jesus’ humanity

We acknowledge our own humanity and refocus on the only One who can satisfy us

We are so familiar with the story of Jesus’ wilderness experience

and the temptation he endured,

but this season is a chance to come away from taking it for granted…

Yes, Jesus died for you and me…

but do we remember that Jesus (God incarnate) was hungry…Jesus was thirsty…God was human.

This should change our hearts…

it should shake us up…

it should absolutely wreck our comfort and complacency

God put on this pain-riddled, struggling flesh of ours and lived in it

In our Christian lives, we think a lot about how Jesus died for us,

but do we spend time thinking about the fact that he lived for us? 

He suffered unimaginably on a cross for hours, yes…

but do we remember that he enduring the pain of this ragged flesh of ours

and felt the frailty of being human for thirty-three years?

We will get to the gruesome suffering of Good Friday…

but let’s not miss the power of God’s willingness to dwell among us –

to hurt like us,

to be lonely like us,

to be fragile like us.

And as we acknowledge that Jesus experienced our humanity alongside us,

this Lent season invites us to carry the reality of our frailty and need

to our High Priest who actually understands what we feel.

In the practice of fasting

(whether it’s from food or social media or something else)

we give up things we think we need

in order to remind us of the only thing we truly need

When a hungry, human Jesus was tempted to give in to self-reliance in the wilderness,

he responded that “One does not live on bread alone,

but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

No matter how hungry, one does not live on bread alone…

Now, insert your own here…

One does not live on ______ alone.

One does not live on success alone. One does not live on attention alone. One does not live on entertainment, escape, emotional fulfillment, a sense of purpose alone…

but on the Bread of Life!

The Word of God become Flesh,

broken for you.

THIS is what we take and eat. This is what fills us up.

We are all human and so inevitably, we are all hungry for things…we are all thirsty

but the question is where do we take our hunger and our thirst?

So what is your “fill in the blank”? Where are you going in your attempts to fill yourself up? Talk to God about it – remember that he knows what it’s like to be human. Confess it to him and invite him into the hungry spaces in your heart.

If we hunger for attention,

may we remember that his thoughts about us outnumber the grains of sand.

If we hunger for purpose,

may we remember that we are a royal priesthood, a chosen people.

If we hunger to be known and loved,

may we remember that he knew us before we were born, before the foundations of the earth.

If we hunger for safety,

may we remember that he has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.

But no matter what we are hungry for,

may we daily taste and see that our God is good,

and that our Savior goes before us into every wilderness.