Ash Wednesday

So, here we are, Ash Wednesday. Perhaps you are like me and have come to deeply connect with the feel of ash on your skin, reminding us we are dust, save for the life-breath of God, and as an entry point to six weeks of reflection leading to Easter Sunday. Or, perhaps the language and traditions of Lent are something you’ve had little or even bad experience with in your faith journey. Either way, like most things this year, Lent may look different than in the past. That can be a good thing.

Lent is considered a time for penitence, reflection. Sometimes I come to this season not just with anticipation, but trepidation. In my exhaustion, the last thing I want is MORE challenge to my heart and soul. To be sure, this of all years, we find ourselves already in a place of challenge, of wilderness.

In its essence, Lent is invitation into wilderness.

The 40 days of Lent commemorate Jesus’ time in the desert, following his affirmation as God’s son at his baptism. He was filled by the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit into the wilderness. (Luke 4:1-3). In the desert, Jesus encountered “the devil” also meaning “the adversary”. In the desert, Jesus was tempted to cut corners or turn away entirely from the ministry he was about to embark on. In this wilderness, Jesus was tempted. This serves as a reminder of how God led the Israelites into the wilderness after freeing them from slavery in Egypt. We remember that in the wilderness Israel wandered, they grumbled, they miss-stepped. In the wilderness, God’s people even regret leaving slavery at first. It’s what they knew. Slavery provided food, shelter, and certainty, if at the cost of their covenant inheritance with God. The Biblical witness of wilderness experience usually does not conjure comforting feelings. It isn’t an easy place. And yet, here we are, invited into the wilderness of Lent.

It may be helpful here to recognize that the Hebrew the word wilderness is “Nidbar”, the root of which means “to speak”. (See Deut. 8:2)

“Wilderness” is literally “the speaking place.” God spoke to Israel in the wilderness. And it is where they found their true voice. The Spirit led Jesus to “the speaking place”, and returning from it, he began to speak the ministry of God’s Kingdom.

It was only in the wilderness that Israel was free enough from slavery to truly discover what enslaved them. And it took time. And it took faith. It took trust. In the wilderness, the Hebrews had to rediscover who they were as ones in covenant relationship with God. Remember, it is in the wilderness that a people who were enslaved for 400 years are first commanded to rest. Those who were enslaved are commanded to rest, that God may do God’s thing, in them and for them and with them.

You are invited into wilderness this Lent. What does that look like for you? Traditionally, yes, fasting from familiar comforts and habits, or taking on unfamiliar ones has supported this journey.

What if this Lent we let God free us from our familiar habits, thoughts, and safety that enslave us to discover what has enslaved us? And to reaffirm true covenant identity with God.

What if we think of the wilderness less as a place of challenge, or desperation where we are left hungry or tired, but where we, hungry, tired and lost, speak with God?

What if this year, we approach Lent as “the speaking place” where we find our voice, and where we hear from God?

What might God speak to you this Lent? What do you need to speak to God?

May you be blessed in “the speaking place” this Lent.

Lin Preiss