Lent 1 – Full to the Brim
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- Deuteronomy 26:1-11
- Luke 4:1-13
We have arrived at the first Sunday in Lent. The scriptures for this Lenten season (in the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C) are filled with parables and promises of God’s abundant and expansive grace. Jesus as a mother hen, a prodigal son welcomed home, a fig tree nurtured with care and hope, precious oil poured out lovingly and freely, stones shouting out with praise —these sacred texts are brimming with a gospel of grace. We’ve done nothing to deserve or earn this grace, and yet, like water, it spills over.
This season we are using A Sanctified Art’s Full to the Brim theme.
When we allow ourselves to be filled to the brim with God’s lavish love, that love spills over. It reaches beyond ourselves; like water, it rushes and flows, touching everything in its path.
This Lent, let us trust—fully—that we belong to God. Let us increase our capacity to receive and give grace. Let us discover the expansive life God dreams for us.
Even in the desert, Jesus expands our definitions of a full life. It’s not the life the Tempter presents: a life defined by excess power, control, or reign. Jesus sees beyond this facade and says, even in the midst of fasting, “One does not live by bread alone” (Luke 4:4).
Excess is not abundance, but there is more. There is a fuller life we are called to live. Even in the midst of struggle, oppressive forces, hardship, and grief—God’s promises spill over, like the bounty of the first fruits from the ground. Even in the desert, you are called to the riverside to be washed by grace.
Lent invites us into our own wilderness journey. It’s a patient walk of exploration which we inevitably escape on Easter morning.
Part of the reason I am a minister today is because of a very dark place – I had had a job go wrong, and I was wondering where I was heading in my life. I started working at the NCCA (with David Gill and Ray Williamson from last week), and I happened to be at a funeral service. I was speaking to YangRae who I’d known for a long time, and who many here know a lot better – and he said – maybe it’s time to come in from the wilderness. So I did. And here I now am.
But if I were really honest with myself (and with all of you), I would say that we never really leave the wilderness – we never really leave the desolation. These wilderness doubts are rooted in the limitations of who we are as human beings, falling short of transformation over and over again.
Even in the desert—in spaces cracked dry of life and flourishing—and even when we have felt deserted—abandoned and alone—God promises to be with us.
What if it isn’t about getting out of the desert? What if we are called to dwell in our doubts, fears, anxieties, and brokenness? What if we are meant to stand in solidarity with those trapped in their own wilderness experiences? I wonder if we can imagine making a home right here, a place existing in the tension between desolation and burgeoning possibility.
In the desert, we cast aside the temptations of this world and actively engage in the promise that abundant love will always have the final say. The desert may very well be right where we belong.
Jesus embodies the fullness of human emotion, which includes joy and sorrow, friendship and betrayal. Lent invites us to be fully present and authentic to what we’re feeling and experiencing—and awake to the ways God might be present. In the midst of war in Ukraine, floods in NSW and QLD, personal tragedy and pain – God is present. Even when we feel distant, God is present.
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