So here we are. Lent again…
No more fun stuff. No more alleluias. No more chocolate…
What if Lent is really not about giving up fun and tasty things?
What if Lent is about something completely different?
What if Lent isn’t some drab cosmic diet plan?
What if Lent is about dropping what we are doing and rolling up our sleeves and building
something? Not building just any ole thing but building something very specific, building the
relationships that make a new world.
We are beginning a construction project, a building program. To be more accurate we are under
re-construction, we are re-building creation, a new creation.
Drop what you are doing! Roll up your sleeves! Pick up a hammer and let’s build a new world
and all the relationships that make up a new world.
Does that sound like Lent? Re –construction, re-building, re-creating the world?
We hear the temptation story from Mark’s Gospel today. Jesus is driven out into the wilderness
for forty days where he was tempted by Satan. Mark is not like Matthew and Luke where Jesus
and Satan argue and quote scripture and Satan eventually leaves to come back at an opportune
time.
In Mark we are seeing the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden from the book of Genesis
retold but with a happy ending.
In the first story Adam and Eve give in to the devil’s temptation and creation falls.
In this new Genesis story Jesus is a new Adam who not only resists temptation but he defeats the
devil permanently.
And what follows? The restoration of Eden. The wilderness is transformed into the original
oasis of creation where the wild beasts are companions and Angels walk the earth and give aid,
the dream of the peaceable kingdom comes true.
From this restored, reconstructed Eden Jesus ministry begins and he goes forth casting out the
now helpless unclean spirits, spreading healing, announcing the arrival of God’s kingdom,
announcing to repent and believe in the arrival of the restoration. The good news spreads
outward and the world is rebuilt.
So the forty days in the wilderness? It’s all about dropping everything and building something, a
certain something, the peaceable kingdom, where all relationships are restored.
That’s what the world is by the way. The world isn’t a pile of dirt with a bunch of critters
crawling around it. The world is a vast network of relationships, of particles and ecosystems and
people all in relationship with their creator. That world of relationships is being restored; believe
the good news of God.
Roll up your sleeves and get to work!