And he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. And he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him. [Mark 1:13 (ESV)]
As I pondered my goals for this year’s Lenten practice, I remembered Alica Britt Chole’s suggestion to “consider Lent as less of a project and more of a sojourn.” While we often encounter the word ”sojourn” in Scripture, it’s not a word typically used today. Although the basic meaning of gûr, the Hebrew word translated at sojourn, is to “live, settle, dwell,” gûr usually included the sense of it being a temporary or transient stay. Typically, a sojourner was someone living outside their clan or a noncitizen in a strange place. Because of famine, Israel sojourned in Egypt for 430 years and, because of their disobedience, they sojourned forty years in the desert before entering the Promised Land. It is Jesus’ 40-day sojourn in the wilderness before entering His public ministry that is remembered in Lent.
The usual question prior to Ash Wednesday is, “What are you giving up for Lent?” and the question following Easter is, “How did you do?” If someone else doesn’t ask it, we ask it of ourselves. Were we successful in refraining from sweets, social media, criticism, shopping, or whatever we gave up? Did we meet our goal of reading the four gospels or memorizing 40 Bible verses? Was our commitment to a daily random act of kindness kept? With its clear start and end dates, Lent easily can turn into an assigned forty-day project. It’s tempting to look at our Lenten practice as we might a New Year’s resolution—we set an objective, create a plan, track our progress, and evaluate our success or failure. God, however, is a relationship, not an obligation or duty! With their thinking that salvation lay in strict observance of the oral and written Law, the Pharisees turned God into a job; we mustn’t make the same mistake with Lent.
If, however, we view Lent as a sojourn rather than an assignment, it becomes an experience instead of a chore. Rather than an objective that must be completed successfully on the 40th day, Lent becomes a temporary journey in the wilderness with God. Rather than 40 days of trying to meet goals, it becomes a blessed season of retreat—a time to hear God’s voice in the silence of the wilderness—a time to feel His presence in the stunning colors of the desert sunset, the stark contrast between sun and shadow, the enormous saguaros cactus with its upturned arms, and the wildflowers determined to grow in this parched and barren land. Without a timeline, we can pause to taste the nopales and fruit of the prickly pear and look for road runners and Gila monsters. Unhindered by city lights, we see God’s majesty in the spectacular view of the stars. Granted, we probably won’t be retreating to the desert but, when we think of Lent as a sojourn with God in the wilderness, it can become a close encounter with Him rather than a job for Him!
Describing Lent as a journey of “bright sadness,” Orthodox Reverend Alexander Schmemann says, “The purpose of Lent is not to force on us a few formal obligations, but to ‘soften’ our heart so that it may open itself to the realities of the spirit, to experience the hidden ‘thirst and hunger’ for communion with God.” Through fasting, prayer, study, and reflection, may we grow closer to God as we sojourn through the wilderness of this Lenten season into the joy of the Resurrection!
Every evening, a man went to the local pub and ordered three beers. When asked why three, he explained that he ordered the two extra beers in honor of his two dear brothers who lived far away. One evening, when the man ordered only two beers, the bartender assumed the worst and extended sympathy for the loss of a brother. Correcting the bartender, the man said his brothers were both fit as fiddles and the beers were for them. “It’s me that’s not drinking tonight,” he explained. “You see, I’ve given up beer for Lent!”
When told that the gifts the Holy Spirit gives us are unique for our specific ministries, we get nervous. We already have a career, didn’t sign up for seminary, and aren’t interested in being ministers. While being a minister/pastor/priest is a vocation, the ministry is the work of every Christian. No matter what our professions, we are all called to minister and that doesn’t necessarily mean pastoring a church. It means serving God and His people in Jesus’ name, which is where those spiritual gifts come in. God is not about to send us off empty-handed.
Psalm 119, the longest of the psalms, is a song in praise of the Word of God. Since we don’t read this psalm in its original Hebrew, we fail to appreciate its intricate construction. Each of its twenty-two sections begin with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence. Each of the eight verses in those twenty-two sections begin with the letter that introduced it. For example, the first word of the first section begins with alef, as do the next seven verses. In the second section, every line begins with beth. The psalm continues that way up to the 22nd (and last) section where every line begins with the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet, tav. 
The celebration of the Lord’s Supper/Holy Communion/the Eucharist has been central to Christian worship since the early church. While Protestants think of the Eucharist as the sacrament commemorating the Last Supper with bread and wine, for Roman Catholics and some Orthodox, “Eucharist” specifically refers to the consecrated elements, especially the bread. How ever you define it, the word “eucharist” originally had nothing to do with this beautiful sacrament.
Mark tells of a time when a hungry Jesus cursed a fig tree and caused it to wither and die simply because it had no figs. As the only destructive miracle done by the Lord, His action is difficult to understand, especially since we’re told “it was too early in the season for fruit.” The same power that brought Lazarus back to life and turned water into wine easily could have given the tree ripe figs, so why did Jesus kill the fruitless tree?
Devotions of the Heart 