LETTER 1: "Dear God, I have been a very good boy this year and I would like a bike for my birthday. I want a red one. Your friend, Barry." But Barry knew this wasn't true. He had not been a very good boy this year, so he tore up he letter and started over.
LETTER 2: "Dear God, This is your friend Barry. I have been a pretty good boy this year, and I would like a red bike for my birthday. Thank you, Barry." Barry knew this wasn't true either. He tore up the letter and started again.
LETTER 3: "Dear God, I have been an OK boy this year and I would really like a red bike for my birthday. Your friend, Barry." But Barry knew he could not send this letter to God either.
Barry was very upset. He went downstairs and told his mother he wanted to go to church. Barry's mother thought her plan had worked because Barry looked very sad. 'Just be home in time for dinner,' his mother said. Barry walked down the street to the church and up to the altar. He looked around to see if anyone was there. He picked up a statue of the Virgin Mary. He slipped it under his shirt and ran out of the church, down the street, into his house, and up to his room. He shut the door to his room and sat down with a piece of paper and a pen. Barry began to write another letter to God. LETTER 4: "I 'VE GOT YOUR MUM. IF YOU WANT TO SEE HER AGAIN, SEND A RED BIKE!"
Misunderstandings happen all too easily! Lent has often been misunderstood in this sort of way. God is somehow disapproving of us and needs to be mollified, so we make a special effort to be good to try to twist his arm to look favourably upon us. We think of Lent negatively. For six weeks we give up things we like, thinking we will be somehow purged and ready to enjoy the new life of Easter more fully. That approach certainly has its place, but Lent ought to be seen more positively as an opportunity to examine our relationship with God and re-evaluate our commitment to God and perhaps even re-evaluate the whole direction of our lives. Traditionally we take 6 weeks beginning on Ash Wednesday taking the 6 weeks Jesus spent in the wilderness as an inspiration. But it's worth recalling what actually happened with Jesus, because then we see it wasn't all negative.
Certainly Jesus gave things up. He gave up pretty much everything to try to figure out what direction his life and ministry was going to take. But why did he do it? If we look at the story we find his motivation was totally different to the motivation we usually associate with Lent. He didn't do it because he felt guilty, or to try to twist God's arm, or even to try to be a better person.
Jesus had been waiting for 30 years, quietly watching, listening and praying - waiting for the right time. Now it had come. He went down to the river Jordan and asked his relative John the Baptist to baptise him, and then it happened. He was overwhelmed, not with a sense of guilt, or need to do something, but with a sense of how much he was loved. "You are my child and I love you very much and am really pleased with you." His heart must have been bursting with excitement and laughter and gratitude. A more positive experience it would be hard to imagine. It would be something that would stay with him through everything that followed. His whole ministry began and was shaped by the sense of how much he was loved and his desire to share that love. He would have left the Jordan on a real 'high'.
But then the difficulties started. The Spirit 'threw' him (the Greek word is very dramatic and violent - ekballo - -ballo is the root from which we get 'ballistic') - he was thrown into the desert to be tested. And there he was tempted to base his ministry on what would have effectively been bribery - turn this desert full of stones into bread and you could feed the world - rather like those slightly dodgy missionary organisations that will meet people's physical needs in poor countries, if they'll convert to Christianity. It might be a worthwhile ministry to feed the hungry - to meet people's physical needs, but Jesus passed that temptation (and I suspect the temptation was real) realizing that man does not live by bread alone. He was called to meet much more that people's physical needs.
He was tempted to base his ministry on meeting physical needs only. He was tempted to base his ministry on impressing others - 'throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the Temple, then they'll follow you and listen to you - you'll be really popular'. He was tempted to compromise - 'if you fall down and worship me all this can be yours' - if he was willing to use some of the Devil's own methods, warfare, violence, political manoeuvring, divide and conquer. Jesus, with his abilities, could have been a great political leader - even overthrown and replaced the Roman emperor.
His temptations are not so different from those we face as Christians when we are trying to build the church, but Jesus knew the only thing he needed was the knowledge of the love of his Father - the living God. To rely on anything else would not only be false but would ultimately let him down. His ministry was based first on the experience of his baptism - the knowledge of how much he was loved - and only after that did giving things up and action and service come into play.
His testing didn't finish when he returned from the wilderness. After his first sermon he was faced with the rejection of the majority - including family and friends in Nazareth, and before long the religious powers that there were - the Scribes and Pharisees - were publicly criticizing his miracles and his teaching. And later on the Temple authorities too. I think it's interesting that the Devil had access to the pinnacle of the Temple. In the end, because he refused to compromise or court popularity or give the crowds what they wanted just about everyone either turned on him or abandoned him.
How did he manage to cope with it all? What he did was not to base his ministry just on self-belief or mere human determination. Neither did he rely on power games or seek human affirmation. Instead, he rested on an unshakeable assurance that God loved him, had called him, had shown him his direction, and was unquestionably with him, even when nobody else was. If God was with him, nothing else and no one else was needed.
So it is with us. It's very easy to find ourselves wanting to do the right thing, yet being tempted to go about it the wrong way - maybe to resort to giving people want they want, impressing others with our abilities or hard work, or compromising or political manoeuvring. It's also easy to be tempted to find ourselves spurred on when people flatter or applaud us. But these things can be very fickle or shallow. People can easily change towards us, and when their encouragement dries up we feel exposed and alone.
But in the end all that really matters is to know, like Jesus, absolutely and overwhelmingly, that God loves us and is with us, unconditionally, whether we succeed or not. When difficulties arise (as they did for Jesus), or the applause of others dies away or turns to opposition (as it did for Jesus), then what keeps us on track is our relationship with God. Once we know he has laid his hand on our lives, we realize that everything else is secondary.
And often we can do the right things for the wrong reasons. We can be driven by guilt or a desire to please or impress others, or even to impress ourselves. This is something we fall into as church members very easily, and I confess I fall into it myself. We come to church because we want some peace and quiet to pray and solace in our lives and we look forward to meeting others who want that too. But before long we get involved in all the various jobs that need to be done in and around the church with the result that our spare time disappears and we get plain tired and fed up. I do too. It happens because we forget that our church life should be primarily about enjoying God's love - learning that we are loved. All the being on rotas and doing church jobs comes after that, not before it.
If we truly get a handle on the fact we are loved, then our service springs naturally from that, and any task we undertake for God will not be a chore but part of our relationship with God and other Christians. Not that it won't be hard at times, or we won't be opposed, etc. Jesus had things the right way round and we can hardly say his ministry was easy.
This Lent we are running the course, 'It's All About Love' - and exploring what we might do to recapture the sense that Jesus had at his baptism and which sustained him through his ministry - the overwhelming awareness of God's love from which all else springs. God doesn't want us to face life's pressures on our own or just to keep trying harder until we're worn out. God's dream for us is that we will trust him, let his love envelop us, and allow him to work in and through us, just as Jesus did.
Lent is not about feeling guilty that we're not doing enough, or we're not good enough, and therefore compensating by over activity. The Bible does not say, 'God was not pleased with the world, so he sent Jesus to chivvy us into action' it says, 'God so loved the world, that he sent his only Son that we might ... have eternal life - life with an eternal quality - life abundant - life to the full.' It's really all about love.
