Lent 5

Lent: Living in the Wilderness
The season of Lent has a lot to do with wilderness. Designed to imitate the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness, Lent includes the 40 days (minus Sundays) between Ash Wednesday and Easter. In this season we are invited to enter instead of avoid wilderness. We are encouraged to embrace discomfort, instead of letting it be a deterrent...trusting that there is life there.

Scripture Reading: Luke 3:1-14 and Isaiah 40:1-5
This Gospel text tells us of the beginning of John the Baptist’s ministry. The Isaiah passage is the source scripture quoted in Luke: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness; ‘Prepare the way of the Lord…’ “ The association of the wilderness and God’s promises, deliverance, guidance, provision, etc would have been strong for the Israelites. From the wilderness, John voice calls out to prepare the way for Jesus who will once again deliver God’s people.

Practice:
We invite you to embrace the wilderness experience during this Lenten season.
This week, we suggest spend some time in reflection and prayer using the following questions as prompts.

At this point in our lenten journey in the wilderness, what promises of God are you beginning to associate personally with the wilderness? How are you being invited to prepare the way of the Lord? What are you expectations for deliverance?

Stories from the Wilderness
Each week this blog page includes a story, written by one of our elders, in which they reflect on a wilderness experience in their life.
The story this week is written by Kris Swenson.

I don’t feel like I have a wilderness experience to share. I’m not an outdoors person, so haven’t gotten lost that I can remember for a literal experience. And though I’ve had ups and downs in life (as everyone does), I’ve never felt alone or abandoned. I knew that whatever I was going through, difficult though it may be, not my will for the outcome, my God was there. It seems for me anyway, tough times are when I feel closest to God, not furthest.