First Sunday of Lent : March 9th
PRAYER
God of wilderness and water,
your Son was baptized and tempted as we are.
Guide us through this season,
that we may not avoid struggle,
but open ourselves to blessing,
through the cleansing depths of repentance
and the heaven-rending words of the Spirit. Amen.
SCRIPTURE
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16
Luke 4:1-13
REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION
The clock has moved forward. The daylight is growing. Lent is upon us. Lent comes from an old English word meaning springtime. In latin, lente, means slowly. Lent is a 40-day journey inviting us to slow down and intentionally walk as God’s people walked those 40 years in the wilderness after their exodus from Egypt. It invites us to reflect on those 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness. Our relational God longs to walk with us and have us grow in trusting His good presence even in the midst of all the wilderness chaos and wilderness beasts who walk there too.
- Psalm 91:1-2, and 9-13 reads like a guarantee to walk the wilderness and have safe passage no matter what. It’s almost like a spoken incantation for ‘super Christians.’ But the opening words of verse 14, “because he loves me,” speak the deeper reality. God first and foremost desires our relational love and trust and NOT our grandiose attempts at being super Christians. This is the portal to a new way forward. In all honesty, lent invites us to slow down and turn away from all the things we tend to love and trust more than God’s presence with us.
- What are some of those other things this life offers you tend to love and trust more than God’s presence?
- Jesus faithfully faced the Satan and the wild animals of the wilderness. Lent invites us to slow down and face the Satan and wild animals at work in our own hearts and lives. Deep within can be bitterness, resentments, unresolved hurts, paranoia and jealousies, sexual complexity, addictions and many other wild beasts. We can keep feeding those beasts in our own ways of coping or we can allow angels to tend to us as Jesus did to discover a new way forward.
- What’s an area of your own wilderness you’d like to experience God’s presence showing you a new way forward?
MOSAIC GIVING
We’re a community trusting in God’s abundance as we practice our movement of receiving and extending the grace of God with one another and our neighbors. We invite you to join us in this movement of trust and generosity. You can give online by clicking the button below or by mailing a check to Mosaic Church, PO Box 81632, Lincoln, NE 68501.
