How are you feeling as this Lenten season begins? I’m baby stepping into Lent…going slowly into the season of reflection and continuing to ponder Jesus in the Wilderness and the Invitations of Lent.
be here now
Lent invites us to be PRESENT with Jesus.
Lent invites us into the WILDERNESS. Into places of desolation and discernment.
Lent invites us to be present with Jesus in the Wilderness.
To be present with others who are in the Wilderness
To be present to our own suffering and the suffering of others, being present to those who are alone and feeling abandoned, those who are forsaken, lost, hopeless, angry or depressed.
TAKE SOME TIME TO PRAY for people who are suffering and places where suffering is happening in our world.
How are you being invited to be PRESENT with Jesus during this Lenten Season? What do you need to be more present?
MARK 1:9-15 FIRST NATIONS VERSION
It was in those days that Creator Sets Free (Jesus) came from his home in Seed Planter Village (Nazareth) in the territory of Circle of Nations (Galilee), to have Gift of Goodwill (John) perform for him the purification ceremony.
Creator Sets Free (Jesus) was a mature man of about thirty winters. The time had come for him to show himself to all the people and begin his great work. He waded out into the river to have Gift of Goodwill (John) perform the ceremony.
10As soon as Creator Sets Free (Jesus) came up from the water, he saw the sky open. The Spirit of Creator came down like a dove and rested on him. 11Then a voice from the sky spoke like distant thunder, “This is my much-loved Son who makes my heart glad!”
HIS VISION QUEST
12Right then and there the Spirit drove Creator Sets Free (Jesus) into the desert wilderness. 13For forty days and nights he remained there, surrounded by wild animals and being tested by Accuser (Satan)—the ancient trickster snake. Spirit-messengers also came to give him strength and comfort.
14Then later, after Gift of Goodwill (John) was arrested, Creator Sets Free (Jesus) traveled to the territory of Circle of Nations (Galilee) to tell the good story.
15“The time has now come!” he said to the people. “Creator’s good road is right in front of you. It is time to return to the right ways of thinking and doing! Put your trust in this good story I am bringing to you.”
What do you notice that you haven’t notices before?
What is the Holy Spirit Highligting for you form this passage?
USE THE ART TO HELP YOU CONTEMPLATE the Invitation of Lent and the Wilderness:
The Main Painting is “Man of Sorrows” by William Dyce
A Scottish Artist who painted Jesus in the Wilderness as a Scottish in the Scottish Highlands. What would your wilderness look like? and What does your Jesus look like?
Christ in the Wilderness by Kelly Latimore
Imagine sitting in the Wilderness with Jesus. Sitting around a fire. What would you want to talk about? Know about? Learn? How does it feel to know that Jesus is with you in the Wilderness? That you are not alone?
Christ in the Wilderness Ivan Kramskoy
The Wilderness is a place of temptation. How are are you and I being tempted? What things cause us to follow ways of the Enemy rather that the Way of Jesus? For me, it’s my phone (too much social media), my work, my ambition, my judgement of others, my inaction and my negative reactions all get in the way of LOVE. My fear often blocks my faith. The bitterness of the world gets under my skin and I become like it, sadly more hateful rather than more loving.
This Lent I need Jesus to heal me!
Learn more about this painting:
Christ in the Desert/ Wilderness 1872 painting by Russian artist Ivan Kramskoi,
Lent begin with the Ashes of Ash Wednesday…to remind us of our mortality and our need for Jesus and his love, healing, and resurrection power! READ THE POEM and consider just what the CREATOR of the Universe can do with DUST! Can do with you and your life, can do with you even in your wilderness this Lent!
BLESSING THE DUST
All those days
You felt like dust, like dirt,
As if all you had to do was turn your face
Toward the wind And be scattered to the four corners.
Or swept away
By the smallest breath
As insubstantial—
Did you not know what the Holy One
Can do with dust?
This day we freely say, we are scorched.
This hour, We are marked by what has made it
Through the burning.
This is the moment ask for the blessing that lives within
The ancient ashes,
That makes its home inside the soil of this sacred earth.
So let s be marked not for sorrow.
And let us be marked, not for shame.
Let us be marked not for false humility
or for thinking we are less that we are.
But for claiming
What God can do
Within Dust,
Within Dirt,
Wishing the stuff
of which the world’s made
And the stars that blaze in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge we bear.
JAN RICHARDSON from “Circle of Grace: A book of Blessings for the Seasons”
Listen to these SONGS and CREATE your own Lenten Playlist to help you be present with Jesus this Lent
“As Lent is the time for greater love, listen to Jesus’ thirst … He knows your weakness. He wants only your love, wants only the chance to love you.”
– St. Teresa of Calcutta
Let Jesus LOVE YOU this Lent!
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com