Reading this morning’s scripture story of how Christ was tempted in the wilderness is the traditional way of entering into the season of Lent.  We're supposed to identify with and gain strength from Christ's victory over temptation. But, our personal temptations are not to turn rocks into bread, worship the devil or cast ourselves down from tall buildings in order to test God.  Our temptations are far more mundane. I like what Ronald Regan said, about how middle age is when you're faced with two temptations, and you choose the one that gets you home by nine!

The temptations Jesus faced seem to have little to do with our lives. We read in Hebrews 4:15 that Jesus is able to sympathize with our weakness because he was tempted as we are, yet without sin. But what did Jesus know about the temptations faced daily by the recovering alcoholic, the unhappily married or the lonely divorcee? What did the temptations of Jesus teach him about how it feels to be someone who loses their job, or a teenager who desperately longs for peer acceptance and will do almost anything to get it? How does identifying with Jesus bring real comfort to real people with real temptations and real problems? What does his wilderness struggle have to do with your life or mine?

You've never been tempted to turn stones into bread, but you have been tempted to doubt that God cares about you personally when you're in the midst of a crisis. You haven't put God to the test by leaping from a high place, but you have been tempted to question God's relevance or helpfulness when things go wrong in your life. I doubt that you've been tempted to get down on your knees and worship the devil, but who among us hasn't been seduced by a lifestyle that continually turns us away from God? Maybe the way Jesus dealt with his temptations has more to do with your life than you might at first imagine.

The Garden of Eden is the counterpart to the wilderness of temptation. The Judean wilderness where Jesus was tempted is a harsh and barren, empty and desolate landscape.  By contrast, the garden conjures up images of lush foliage, flowing streams, singing birds and blooming flowers. Both of these images are metaphors for emotional and spiritual experiences. The one is where we want to get to; the other we typically try to avoid.

In the Bible, the garden symbolizes the feeling of blessing and intimacy with God. I have a picture of Anni and I walking in the garden. It's a picture that was taken before we were married and has been hanging on the wall of every home we have lived in for over thirty years and on our last anniversary Chalice had it made into a piece of stained glass. But it's not what you might imagine. It's a picture of us walking along a sandy beach, toward Proposal Rock. And there's another image of the garden that is indelibly imprinted in my memory. I'm dressed in hospital scrubs, standing poised and ready to catch my newborn baby Chalice, cut the cord and lay her on Anni's breast. Those are just two of those garden moments when I was vividly aware of God's blessing. You've been to the garden too. The garden is any time and place that you recognize, if just for a moment, the God rays of sacred love shining into your life.

And we've all experienced the wilderness as well. The wilderness is where anger, disappointment and depression dwell. When we feel alienated from someone whom we really care about, it's a wilderness experience. Divorce is obviously accompanied by dry and arid feelings of loss, as is the grief and despair we feel over the suffering or death of a loved one.  We've all had those times when the temptation was to feel alone and abandoned by God.

So, why does the season of Lent focus on the wilderness?  Why not just have 40 days of dwelling in the garden instead?  The reason is that the wilderness is inevitable, and we need to learn that there’s a way out.  The season of Lent is designed as a time of prayer and reflection that ultimately brings us to the realization that the promise of the garden comes to us at precisely when we’re in the midst of one of those inevitable wilderness experiences.

A lot of people these days don’t believe in the devil.  If you happen to be one of those people, here’s a story that may provide you with another way of looking at it.  A man died and willed his farm to the devil. The courts, deliberating on such a ridiculous set of circumstances, decided that the best way to carry out his wishes was to let the farm grow up in weeds and briars, to allow the houses and barns to remain unpainted and to rot, and to permit the soil to erode and wash away. The court said, "The best way to let it go to the devil is to do nothing with it."   Do you get the point?  The season of Lent is a time for spiritual maintenance and repair, and that's what I want to challenge you with this morning.

Lent is like a tithe. A year is 365 days and Lent is roughly a tenth of that time. These next 40 days are an opportunity and a challenge for you to insure your future. You don't have to practice spiritual disciplines during Lent, but if you don't you’re missing an opportunity for growth and new life. The greatest temptation is to do nothing, to simply ignore the challenge - and the opportunity that Lent provides for spiritual growth.

We don't have a whole lot of choice about entering the wilderness. We all get lost and feel alone at times. But Lent is the season when we are reminded that Christ has walked this wilderness way before us. He knows the way out, and you are not alone. He will be your savior, your Lord and your guide. He's inviting you to walk through the wilderness with him hand in hand, and to enter the garden of joy.

What do you want to be different in your life? Do you want to be more positive, more hopeful, more loving, more disciplined? The opportunity and the challenge of transforming old, self-destructive habits of spiritual laziness and neglect into new and positive, life-affirming habits of meditation and prayer demands a transitional period of discipline, and it's interesting to note that those who have studied human behavior say that new behaviors take about 3 months of regular practice to become habitual. The forty days of Lent is an excellent time to start a new spiritual discipline.  Take time to be holy!  Amen.