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Today is the first Sunday of Lent. The word lent comes from an Old English word and it means a lengthening of days. The six seasons in the church year as well as our four seasons in the calendar year help us understand the circle of life. Time and moods are not static, life does not sit still. Yet, we return over and over to familiar and changed territory. Lent is a season when we walk with Jesus toward and to the cross.

Ash Wednesday literally marks the beginning of Lent. CCC Ash Wednesday’s include the annual Pancake Supper hosted by our Middle School youth. It was a great event with an assortment of pancake specialties. One does not dine on plain pancakes alone! They served about 100 people and did an awesome job. Thank you young people and parents!

Pancakes and preparing for Lent go together. The official time for this pancake ritual is the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras and Pancake Day share function. Lent, six weeks of fasting, begins the next day. Lent, for many, means fasting from certain foods such as meat, sugar, fat, and cream. It means eating more plain foodstuffs. In an earlier time preparing for Lent meant discarding ingredients like eggs, milk and sugar. Pancakes became the menu as households used up butter, eggs, and that pleasure giving, sugar.

It’s a spring cleaning of sorts. Lent is a time for clearing away the clutter in our lives. It is a time to take a thorough spiritual inventory of who we are and who we are becoming.

The ashes we place on our foreheads symbolize the fact that we are mortal and imperfect. We make mistakes. We sin. Long ago people would wear sackcloth (coarse clothing) and ashes in order to let others know that they were guilty of some wrongdoing. I prefer to consider ashes on my forehead as a sign of humility rather than shame. I, like you, have clay feet.

Ashes also symbolize the circle of life. From dust, the good earth, we are made. To dust we shall one day return. We are alive on this amazing planet not for eternity but for a moment in the grand scheme of things. Life is made up of a series of moments.

At some point, we die. We do not cease to exist, we are changed. Something mystical and mysterious happens as our spirit/soul leaves our body and travels to another kind of life -This life eternal, life without end with God. No one knows what heaven looks like or feels like. Those thoughts and questions are for our minds, hearts and imaginations to ponder. Be assured that when we die, God does not abandon us. God is even more present with us.

Jesus lived on the same earth as you and I. Jesus’ life was filled with a series of moments. We are aware of some of those moments because they are recorded in our scripture. No one was walking around covering the life and times of Jesus like a reporter would today. The words of Jesus that we read in our Bible are not exact quotes. We have moments, snapshots of what persons and communities wanted to remember and have others remember about this incredible man who embodied the Spirit of God.

Today’s gospel tells us about Jesus in the wilderness. He was fasting. He was engaged in his own prayer discipline, finding a place of stark solitude to be still and to be fed by Yahweh. Jesus was on a Lenten journey, letting go of those things that got in the way of his recognizing his dependency on God. (like a full belly and a comfortable bed) Being too comfortable is a danger in our faith walk. We can be lulled into believing that we do not need God.

Jesus was alone, perhaps sitting on a high overlook, resting beneath a scrubby tree. Jesus was taking in the desert landscape we call the Middle East. I wonder what Jesus was thinking and feeling. Was he content? Pensive? Lost inside? His forty day and forty night retreat had ended. He was most certainly hungry. Hungry for bread, not meaning.

Along comes the Devil to test Jesus. If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. What does Jesus reply? One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Jesus was centered. He was hungry but certainly not empty.

Taking a little different tack, I want to ask: What are the stones along our Lenten journeys? What might we ask God to transform into bread? Who are the persons that have left us wounded, that ignite our angry hearts or remind us of the parts of ourselves we would rather not face?

What are those situations that invite us into temptation? What are the crosses we bear? Might this Lenten journey be a time to see life’s irritations, horrors, and our own limitations as teachers? Might we pray to recognize the bread Jesus offers us as forgiveness and transformation? Might these stones be transformed into bread?

Stones can be worn away, rolled away and broken.

If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.

Jesus then took the bread, blessed it, and broke it. This is my body, broken for you.

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