In the Gospel reading for the first Sunday in Lent, following his baptism, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. The temptations that Jesus faces include breaking his fast, through an act of self-sufficiency rather than relying on God’s provision; testing God through an arbitrary self-serving act of recklessness and exhibitionism that involves jumping off the temple; and finally, worshipping Satan and being granted self-centred earthly power and control.

Jesus temptations are therefore a choice between being self-centred and self-serving with being God-centred and God-serving. On each occasion, Jesus responds by rejecting Satan’s temptations and affirms his obedience to God and the Divine Kingdom. The third temptation, in particular, seeks to draw Jesus’s allegiances away from the Kingdom of God to become a worldly ruler. The major power of Jesus’ time, Rome, ruled through military oppression, slavery, and through idolatry that justified its control. It also used vassals, such as King Herod, to reinforce its rule. Jesus rejects this worldly model in favour of God’s Kingdom of liberative love and life giving freedom in the power of the Spirit. In so doing he observes God’s sovereignty and good purposes for the world.

Jesus experience in wilderness in some ways mirrors the experience of the ancient Jewish people when they left the land of Egypt, and wandered in the desert wilderness, before reaching the Promised Land. During this time the Jewish people are tested while they receive and follow their laws and ordinances from God and develop their identity as God’s people. By passing his tests in the wilderness Jesus demonstrates his identity as the beloved and only Son of God, who has come to liberate humanity from sin, and as the one who is dedicated not to and self-sufficiency and self-centredness but rather loving self-giving and self-sacrifice.

As we enter this season of Lent it may feel like we are wandering in a place of wilderness, particularly when it comes to our faith lives and our life together as a church. We may see a landscape that is dry and challenging and with many risks to our faith.
This is why we, like Jesus, must also hold to the promises of God and continue to live faithfully and in obedience to his commandments, particularly his command to love and to avoid selfish ways of being.

When times are difficult it is tempting for us to pursue goals that are self-serving in which we seek to dominate and control others. Yet the wilderness experience of Jesus reminds us that we are to wait on God, who is the source of all our provision and offers us the good governance that comes through the rule of love. The wilderness is a time for us to re-discover who we are in relation to God, to avoid temptation, to repent from evil, and to affirm our identity in Christ as we walk with him in the way of liberative and transforming love that takes us to the cross and the resurrection.

I hope and pray that during this season of Lent that we might be guided by God’s Spirit, committing ourselves to God’s Kingdom and to following Jesus. And in doing this we might be finding our identity in Christ, our hope, our liberator, and the saviour of the world.