First Sunday of Lent, March 9, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Moses speaks
Moses spoke to the people.
When the Egyptians oppressed us we cried out to the Lord and he heard our cry.
He brought us out of Egypt with strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying power, with signs and wonders.
I imagine him standing as if in a pulpit, high on a rock, arms outstretched, loud enough for all to hear.
And then I imagine him sitting cross-legged in a circle with some of the leaders of his people, a rare intimate moment with men and women he has lived with forty years or more, remembering the beauty and majesty of moments with their God, with Yahweh, the one who spoke out of a burning bush, who pushed and then punished the Egyptians over and over, who insisted on purity and righteousness in his chosen people.
The Lord God gave us this land overflowing with milk and honey.
This is the moment at last for us to give our offering to You, firstfruits from the soil which you have given us.
Now let us bow down in his presence.
On this first Sunday of Lent I want to present an offering. It is good to fast once a week for this time. It is good to offer money when we can to men and women on the street asking for help. Our church generously passes on a high percentage of what we give.
Still, I feel endlessly and helplessly full of myself, as did Walter Wangerin when he looked into “the mirror of dangerous grace, purging more purely than any other.”
The desert calls me as it calls many, in part because the desert offers its own kind of mirror, a mirror which seems empty of illusions, empty of temptations, empty and waiting for whatever I might bring. When Jesus, perhaps in trepidation, entered the desert, did he expect to be tempted by hunger, power and immortality? Surely he expected to encounter the devil, that fallen angel hounding his thoughts and footsteps even before the moment of his birth.
Or did he hope to feel the presence of Moses, high upon a rock preaching with power to the people?
He ate nothing during those days.
If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.
Just writing this, supposedly safe in the comfort of our living room, I shiver with dread. I am afraid.
Jesus answered him. One does not live on bread alone.
Jesus allowed the devil to carry him to great heights, to a pulpit where the whole world could hear his words.
I shall give to you all this power and glory if you worship me.
Not subtle but brazen and shameless, this fallen angel. Jesus ignored him.
You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.
The devil had one more card up his sleeve. Is God not omni-powerful and immortal? Did he not indeed create time, and live beyond time, outside the bounds made for man?
Throw yourself down from this parapet, and He will command his angels to guard you and support you.
Jesus looked the devil straight in the eye. Jesus spoke with authority to the devil, whose own authority was fading fast.
You SHALL NOT put the Lord, your God, to the test!
I think Moses stood in stirring silence alongside Jesus, in the sand and on the rock. Jesus was never alone. And not just Moses. Every step Jesus was accompanied by his Abba.
(Deuteronomy 26, Psalm 91, Romans 10, Matthew 4, Luke 4)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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