February 22, 2026
Readings & Message
PSALM 32
I didn’t give a page # for the Psalm passage in that Nancy is going to read it from another translation entitled The Message…and as we begin this season of self-examination and possible, repentance, this is our prayer: that God will “make clear where truth and light appear.” In coming to know and confess the ways that we separate ourselves from God and from one another, we will also come to know the joy of forgiveness that comes from God alone. Then, as the psalmist says, we will “Be glad in the Lord and rejoice…and shout for joy”
MATTHEW 4: 1-11
One of the quintessential or classic theologians of late was Paul Tillich and this is one of the things which he wrote… “Life demands decisions and therefore, the exclusion of alternatives.”…he could have been speaking about Jesus facing the temptations and deciding who he really is and, therefore, how he is going to be…and this confrontation with Satan or the proverbial ‘dark side’ offers Jesus the opportunity to choose which identity he was going to live into: the one God offered (“my beloved”) or the one that Satan offers (“Son of God”)…and this is important stuff because temptation always offers us the opportunity to identify the truth about who we are and whose we are…it gives us the chance to weigh truth against illusion…our Self against our ego….
WHY LENT?
Well folks…let’s face it…I believe that Lent’s in trouble…in deep trouble…and let me explain why….most of us have our favourite holiday seasons or holiday times…for quite a few of us it’s Christmas… with all of the family get togethers and the food and the gift-giving and the all around sense of being in a joyful time…maybe for others its those summer holidays or those trips to faraway places and lying on a beach somewhere or golfing in the middle of February…but each year at just about this time, it strikes me that very few of us would pick Lent…a season that seems to be for most of us – grim, as sometimes the weather which can go with it…
Just think about this for a moment…crossing off days on your calendar until Ash Wednesday…or maybe leaving work a little early saying “I’ve got to leave a bit early today because I need to get my Lenten shopping done”…or advertisements on television or the newspapers, “only twelve more days till the day of Ashes”…or little children going to bed and asking their parents, “How much longer till Lent is here?....
It just doesn’t happen….and the trouble with Lent, I think, is fairly clear…it’s buried right in the heart of the primary reading for Ash Wednesday…from the sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6…you might have hear these words last Wednesday… “And when you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting…truly I tell you, they have received their reward…but when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may not be seen by others but by God who is in secret; and God who sees in secret will reward you.”…
Actually…we don’t have to read the whole passage because the brunt of Lent’s problem is in the first four words, “And when you fast….”
And when you fast?!...c’mon…except for the occasional crash diet before summer vacation or the fasting for a part of the day to get your blood tests, who fasts anymore?....and there it is in a nut-shell…the trouble with Lent…it feels like this strange, weird holiday that celebrates things we don’t value…encourages attitudes we don’t share…no wonder that each year fewer and fewer churches observe this age-old fourth-century tradition…it’s too old fashioned, too “Roman”, too medieval for many of us contemporary Christians to handle…so let’s face it, Lent’s in trouble…there’s no enthusiasm with it…I don’t know, maybe it’s that there are no presents at the end, and no fun and games along the way…or maybe it’s that Lent asks us to give up things..
Or maybe it’s Lent’s themes that trouble us…penitence…sacrifice… could be that big word contemplation…I bet you these words weren’t even popular with the Puritans of old…and so each year, as I listen to my non-Lent observing friends knock it as ‘crazy theology’ and my Lent-observing friends complain about it as a pain in the you-know-what, the same question demands an answer... “Why Lent?...I mean, who really needs it?... but do you know what?...each year, whatever my feelings approaching Lent may be, the same answer comes whispering back to me… “I do…just maybe…I need Lent…just maybe I need a time to focus…to get my mind off of being a paid-accountable-minister…the building project…the family stuff…and centre myself in Meaning itself…and maybe, just maybe – and this takes the greatest imagination of them all – just maybe, Lent really isn’t mine to do with whatever I please…perhaps Lent isn’t even the church’s, to insist upon or discard at will…maybe Lent isn’t any of ours, to scoff at or observe…maybe Lent is God’s….maybe Lent is God’s gift to a people starving for meaning…for courage…for comfort…for life…
If it is – if we can imagine that Lent is not ours at all but is wholly God’s – then maybe we’ll also begin to recall, at first vaguely but then more strongly, that we, too, are not ours at all, but are wholly God’s – God’s own possession and treasure…
Yeh…I need Lent…I hope you do too…I need an absence of gifts so that I might acknowledge the GIFT…I need a time to be quiet and still (as we began our worship service today)…I need a time to crane my neck and lift my head, straining to hear again what was promised me at my baptism: “You are mine!...I love you!...I am with you!”…I need Lent, finally, to remind me of who I am – God’s heir and Christ’s co-heir – so that, come Easter, I can rejoice and celebrate with all the joy, all the passion, all the anticipation, of a true heir to peace…
And so yes…I need Lent…and to tell you the truth, I suspect that you do, too…you see, if Lent’s in trouble, it’s only because we’re in trouble, so busy trying to make or keep or save our lives that we fail to notice that God is standing right beside us and raising us up on eagle’s wings…may each of us soar this season and may we be touched by grace…..thanks be to God….Amen…