Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent - Philip Plyming

Last Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, Christians across the world began observing the season of Lent, a time when we prepare our hearts and lives to follow Jesus in his journey to the cross of Good Friday.

But when did that journey start? When and where did Jesus’ way of the cross begin?

We might think that it started when, having been sentenced to death, Jesus was given his cross to carry all the way to Golgotha, a burden which came to be shared by Simon of Cyrene. Or we might reason that is began on Palm Sunday when Jesus arrived in Jerusalem on a donkey and walked the way of humility. Or we might reflect that it started up in Galilee when Peter confessed Jesus as the Christ and our Lord Jesus turned his face to Jerusalem and asked his followers to take up their cross and follow him.

I want to suggest this morning that the way of the cross began for Jesus much earlier, right back at the start of his public ministry. For while our gospel reading this morning, the temptation of Jesus in the desert, is fertile ground for reflecting on the reality of temptation, the wiles of the devil, and the challenge of our call to lead holy lives, it is primarily about Jesus and the choices that he made, choices which I believe set a pattern for all that lay before him. And if Lent is about following Jesus on the way of the cross then looking more carefully at his example will only serve us well for the journey ahead.

I want us to notice three choices which Jesus makes at the end of his forty days in the desert.

First, Jesus seeks the Father’s provision over his personal needs. We are told after forty days of fasting Jesus was famished, and so the temptation to turn stones into bread would have been overwhelming. And yet Jesus chooses otherwise, quoting a text which took him back to the story of the provision of the manna in the wilderness, a reminder of God’s provision in challenging times.

Jesus’ way of the cross will be about trusting his Father’s provision rather than simply meeting his own needs. It will take him to a cross where he will cry ‘I am thirsty’ and trust himself to the Lord.

Second, Jesus seeks the Father’s will over his personal desires. After the second temptation Jesus says to the devil ‘Do not put the Lord to the test’ in so saying affirms his relationship with his heavenly Father not as a magic lamp to be rubbed, with the aim of getting what he wants, but rather a relationship of obedience and trust.

Jesus’ way of the cross will take him to Gethsemane where he will cry out, ‘Father if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will but yours be done.’

Third, Jesus seeks the Father’s glory over his personal praise. He chooses not the adulation of all the kingdoms of the world but rather the worship of his heavenly Father. Worship the Lord your God, he says, and serve only him.

Jesus’ way of the cross will take him to a place of Roman humiliation, where passers by will mock and sneer. He will refuse to save himself because his way is to save others. He will not court the praise of the crowd but the glory of his Father.

The way of the cross started with the choices Jesus made in the desert, where he sought the Father’s provision, will and glory over his own. A pattern was set in the place which became the pattern of Jesus’ life – and his death.

As we take our first steps in this holy season of Lent, I want to suggest that it makes all the difference in the world to have this example of the Lord Jesus before us. Without such a vision, our observance of Lent, our Lenten abstinence, could become a chore or a sort of bargaining chip with God, as Dan talked about his sermon on Ash Wednesday. I’ll do this and you will do that. But with a clear vision of Jesus Lent becomes a chance for us to enter more fully into our Lord’s story and grow our faith and trust in God.

So let me trace three invitations for us this Lent, reflecting the choices Jesus made in the wilderness.

First, we are with Christ invited to seek the Lord’s provision over our personal needs. Lenten abstinence is an opportunity to seek the Lord’s provision when we are going without. If we are missing (in more than one sense) a drink, a meal, a steak, then the invitation is to pray ‘give us today our daily bread’ and wait to see how the Lord provides. Perhaps with strength we didn’t know we had, perhaps with encouragement we didn’t know we needed. Spiritual manna that lifts our hearts on the way of the cross.

Second, we are with Christ invited to seek the Lord’s will over our personal desires. Our desires are important and worth attending to, but Lenten prayer is an opportunity to align our will with God’s, to pray more fervently ‘thy will be done.’ If our prayers are filled more with silence than a shopping list, we will be walking with Jesus on the way of the cross.

Third, we are with Christ invited to seek the Lord’s glory over personal praise. In a world where social media says ‘look at me’, our Lenten disciplines are best done in secret, behind a closed door, where recognition comes from the Lord alone. If we find ourselves giving generously and secretly and praying afresh ‘thine be the glory’ then we are walking the way of the cross.

The historian Tom Holland rightly argues in his book Dominion that the cross of Christ is not simply something that happened to our Lord 2000 years ago. It also set a pattern, created a culture and established a new and radical ethic which has shaped the pattern of Western civilization ever since.

We can lament the loss of such a sacrificial ethic in contemporary leadership and culture, but I suggest it is rather more useful if we seek to model it afresh ourselves. Wherever we are on our journey of faith, including taking our very first steps, this Lent can be about reflecting the choices that Jesus made there in the desert, choices which at the very outset of his ministry set his trajectory on the way of the cross, and which give us a way to walk in today, the way of the cross, and the way of life and peace. Amen.