Lent 1 - In the Desert

Here's a link to Luke 4:1-13, this week's Gospel text:

http://divinity.library.vanderbilt.edu/lectionary/CLent/cLent1.htm

I remember the first time I traveled through New Mexico. I had fallen asleep in my family's Toyota Previa, a frothy-white van with barely the hint of a front end. I awoke to the heat of the desert, my shirt suctioned gently to the top of my damp skin.

My father would refuse to turn on the air conditioning except in the most extreme of circumstances. He was of the mind that air conditioning wasted gas, or put us out of touch with our environment, or showed weakness. So, for the next two or three hours, as our vehicle pushed west-east through the heart of New Mexico's desert, I suffered in quiet surrender to the power of heat and desperation.

At long last, we pulled up to our hotel and moved our overstuffed suitcases into our rooms. I stepped outside and went to the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by ten or twelve differing license plates. I remember that I felt dry, my body's water supply given over to sweat during the day. And I thought to myself:

"This place is dead. Dirty roads, ugly brown weeds, life-draining sun. How could anyone ever find peace here?"


This week we're journeying with Christ into the desert, into a place of wandering and reflection. We're asked to take stock of our lives, to look at where we're at. We have quiet in the desert, and time. But how can we not feel lonely and barren? The question I asked in a warm parking lot in New Mexico could be asked of this Gospel text. How can we find ourselves in the desert?