1st Sunday of Lent 2025
Deuteronomy 26:4-10; Romans 10:8-13; Luke 4:1-13
Where are you going? Where are WE going? This is Jubilee Year, Holy Year, and it has been given the overall label “Pilgrims of Hope”. Pilgrims are people who are going somewhere, and so it is fair to ask “Where are you going?” and “Who is going with you?”
The Israelites, led by Moses, and later by Joshua (but ultimately by God) knew where they were going: they were going to the Promised Land. Jesus “full of the Holy Spirit”, we are told, knew where He was going: He was going into the wilderness, led by that same Holy Spirit. There He would learn more about His ultimate journey, to Jerusalem, to the Cross, and finally to Resurrection.
So I ask again “Where are you going? Where are WE going?” The simple answer is: “We are going with them; we are going with Him”. We are going through the wilderness to the Promised Land. We are going into the wilderness, we are going to Jerusalem, to Death, and to Resurrection. AND WE ARE GOING TOGETHER.
Why do I say that? I say that because we are a People. We are the Pilgrim People of God, as the Second Vatican Council reminded us. We are Pilgrims of Hope, as we are told especially this year, and we are journeying, together, to the Kingdom.
Have you ever been ambushed by those people who will seize you, metaphorically, by the throat, and will demand to know “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour?”? I haven’t been so grabbed, but if I were, I think that I would reply “Well, not too personal”. I do, I hope, have a personal relationship with Jesus, but I am saved by Him, not in isolation, but as a member of a People, of that Pilgrim People which journeys together, in the footsteps of the children of Israel, in the footsteps of Jesus the Lord, supported by the whole People of God, the Communion of Saints, those who are with us now, who worship with us now, but also those who have gone before us throughout the ages, the saints and faithful departed, who support us on our way.
It is fascinating that, in what is described as a secular age, this concept of the Communion of Saints lingers, albeit unrecognised. A few years ago, I attended a Humanist funeral. At one point, the teenaged grandchildren of the deceased were invited to speak, and they all uttered what amounted to prayers, trusting that their grandad was watching over them—and you find similar sentiments in Facebook posts. The reality of the Communion of Saints is rooted deeply in the human psyche, even if it is not called explicitly by that name.
There then we have the overall pattern of the Pilgrim People of God, journeying together through the wilderness of life. What though of the particular wilderness of Lent, which we have entered voluntarily—or have we?
Are we not, in fact, led into the wilderness by the Spirit, as Jesus was? And will we not therefore do what Jesus did and, to an extent, encounter what He encountered?
In the wilderness, Jesus prayed and fasted: must we not do the same? I must confess that I have no patience with the view that fasting, self-denial, giving things up, whatever term we use, is negative, and therefore we shouldn’t do it. BALONEY! Jesus did it. Are we going to complain that He was being negative? That He shouldn’t have done it? Do we know better than Jesus? I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy trying that argument.
Will we also be tempted? I imagine so. What? To turn stones into bread? To worship Satan for the sake of earthly power? To throw ourselves down from the steeple of Lancaster Cathedral or the tower of Lancaster Priory? I doubt that—but in ways that attack our weak points.
If you notice, two of Our Lord’s temptations were aimed at His identity. “If you are the Son of God….” said the devil. He wanted Jesus to doubt His identity, to feel the need to prove it, and thus to abandon His trust in the Father. How might we be tempted over our identity?
“If you were really a Christian, you would be doing such and such.” “If the Church was of God, it wouldn’t have done A B or C.” “If there was a God, this thing or that wouldn’t happen.” All of those temptations to discouragement, to doubt, to despair, may strike us, either from outside, from what people say, or from within ourselves. We can only put our trust in God, cry to Him for help—and that trust will be vindicated.
The other temptation was aimed at that lust for power which lurks, in some form, in all of us. “I will give you…” not for us, all the kingdoms of the world, but a sense of superiority, the ability to put other people down, to consider ourselves better than them, to believe that we are always in the right.
Satan’s temptations were tailor made for the Lord, and they will be tailor made for us. If we are seriously using those aids which Our Lord gave us in the Ash Wednesday Gospel—namely prayer, giving, and self-denial—we will, please God, be able to resist, especially if we remember that we are a people, journeying together, supporting one another, and supported by the whole Body of Christ, travelling with the Lord as Pilgrims of Hope.
