Sermon For Lent Days

Driven Into The Desert, Drawn Toward Grace

Brothers and sisters, let me ask you something directly. Is there any part of your life right now that you have been reluctant to bring before God? Any corner you have quietly kept closed, any habit you have dressed up with a reasonable explanation, any wound you have decided is simply too old or too complicated to revisit? And if someone were to ask you honestly whether you are ready for Easter, whether you are ready to stand before the risen Christ with nothing hidden and nothing held back, what would you say?

These are not comfortable questions. But they are Lenten questions. And the Church, in her ancient wisdom, sets aside these forty days precisely because she knows that none of us arrives at Easter by accident. We are prepared for it. We are led into it. And the appointed readings this morning show us exactly how that preparation begins.

The Central Claim

Here is what I want to hold before you throughout this homily: the wilderness is not a punishment. It is a preparation. And the call to repentance is not a verdict against you. It is an invitation into the life that God has always intended for you. Mark's Gospel and the fifty-first Psalm together form a kind of double testimony to this truth, and I want us to walk through them carefully this morning.

The Baptism And The Wilderness

Mark moves with his characteristic urgency. He gives us no birth narrative, no genealogy, no long prologue. He simply begins. And what he begins with is water, a voice, and a Spirit.

In Mark 1:9, we read: "In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John." Then the Spirit descends like a dove, and a voice comes from heaven: "You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased."

And then, immediately, the Spirit drives him into the wilderness.

That word drives is worth pausing over. Mark uses a strong word here, the same word he uses elsewhere when Jesus casts out unclean spirits. The Spirit does not gently suggest that Jesus might benefit from a quiet retreat. He drives him out. Jesus goes into the wilderness not because he wandered there, not because circumstances pushed him there, but because the Spirit of God sent him there on purpose.

He was there forty days, tempted by Satan, among the wild animals, and the angels were serving him.

Now, Mark does not elaborate on the temptations the way Matthew and Luke do. He simply tells us that Jesus was there, that the adversary was present, that the wilderness was wild and inhospitable, and that through all of it the angels ministered to him. There is something in that compressed account that is actually more arresting than a detailed catalogue of temptations. Mark wants us to feel the rawness of it. The Son of God, freshly named and beloved, is sent into a hard place. Not despite his belovedness. Because of it.

This is the pattern that Lent traces in our own lives. The same Spirit who descended on Jesus at his baptism is the Spirit who was given to you at your own baptism, the Spirit who seals you in confirmation, who meets you at this Table. And that Spirit does not always lead us into comfortable places. Sometimes the Spirit leads us into honesty about ourselves that feels like wilderness. Sometimes the Spirit leads us into a season of stripping away, of silence, of confrontation with our own poverty of soul. And that stripping, that confrontation, is not abandonment. It is preparation.

The Cry Of The Wilderness Soul

This is precisely where Psalm 51 enters the liturgy with such force. The psalm is attributed to David in the aftermath of his worst moment, after Nathan the prophet has confronted him with the full weight of what he has done. And what David does in that moment is not make excuses. He does not negotiate. He does not minimize. He prays.

"Be gracious to me, God, according to your faithful love; according to your abundant compassion, blot out my rebellion."

Notice where David begins. He does not begin with his own sorrow, though his sorrow is real. He does not begin with a promise to do better, though repentance will eventually require changed behavior. He begins with God's character. He appeals to faithful love, to abundant compassion. He is saying, in effect: I have no ground to stand on except who you are.

That is the posture of genuine repentance. It is not self-flagellation. It is not a performance of contrition designed to move God emotionally. It is a clear-eyed acknowledgment of what is true: I have sinned, I cannot undo it, and my only hope is the mercy of God.

Verse 10 is one of the most beautiful prayers in all of Scripture: "God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me."

David does not ask God to repair the old heart. He asks for a new creation. The word he uses for create is the same word used in Genesis 1, the word reserved for what only God can do, the making of something from nothing. David knows that what he needs is not renovation. It is resurrection. And he has the audacity to ask for it.

This is the prayer that Lent teaches us to pray. Not merely: God, help me do better. But: God, create in me what I cannot create in myself. Renew what I cannot renew. Make me new.

The Gospel Comes After The Wilderness

After the forty days, Jesus emerges from the wilderness and begins to preach. And what does he preach? Mark 1:15: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news."

The time is fulfilled. The wilderness is behind him. The testing is complete. And now he speaks, and what he speaks is not condemnation but announcement. The kingdom has come near. The reign of God is breaking into human history. And the proper response to that announcement is repentance and faith.

These two things belong together. Repentance without faith becomes mere guilt, a turning away from sin with nowhere to turn toward. Faith without repentance becomes cheap, a comfortable arrangement that costs nothing and changes nothing. But repentance and faith together, that is the movement of the gospel. That is what Lent is training us to do.

Repentance, in the biblical sense, is not primarily an emotion, though it may involve deep emotion. It is a reorientation. It is turning from one direction and facing another. It is the prodigal son coming to himself in the far country and saying, I will arise and go to my father. It is David in the psalm saying, I have been going one way, and I need to go another, and I cannot make that turn without you.

And faith is not the absence of doubt or difficulty. Faith is the decision, made again and again, to trust the one who has proven himself trustworthy. Jesus went into the wilderness trusting the Father. He came out of the wilderness still trusting the Father. And the angels ministered to him throughout.

What Faithful Obedience Looks Like In Lent

So what does this mean for us, practically, in these forty days?

It means, first, that we take the wilderness seriously. Lent is not a season for performative religiosity. It is not about giving up chocolate so that you can feel slightly virtuous. It is about allowing the Spirit to lead you into honest territory. Where are you? What has accumulated in your life that needs to be named before God? The collect for Ash Wednesday in the Book of Common Prayer asks that we might be given grace to keep the observance of holy Lent with discipline of body, contrition of heart, and amendment of life. Those three things belong together: the outer discipline, the inner honesty, and the genuine intention to change.

It means, second, that we bring the whole truth of our lives to God in prayer. David did not edit his psalm. He said, against you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. He said, I was guilty when I was born. He did not soften it. And God did not turn away from him. The God who receives that kind of prayer is the same God you are praying to this morning. You do not need to arrive at this altar with your life already sorted. You need to arrive honestly.

It means, third, that we hold onto the promise. David prays in verse 12: "Restore the joy of your salvation to me, and sustain me by giving me a willing spirit." He expects God to restore what has been lost. He expects joy to return. He does not pray as a man who believes he has permanently disqualified himself. He prays as a man who knows the character of the God he is addressing.

And that is the promise that stands over all of Lent. Not that the wilderness will be easy. Not that repentance will be painless. But that the one who drives us into the wilderness also sends his angels to minister to us there. And that on the other side of the forty days, there is an announcement: the time is fulfilled, the kingdom has come near, and the good news is real.

The Cross And The Empty Tomb Are Ahead

We are moving toward something. Every Lenten day is a day of preparation, a day of walking toward Jerusalem, toward the cross, toward the empty tomb. The repentance we practice now is not an end in itself. It is the clearing of the ground so that Easter can land with its full weight.

The cross tells us that God did not look at human sin from a safe distance and offer advice. He entered it. He bore it. Jesus went into the wilderness so that he could go to the cross. And he went to the cross so that you and I could receive what David prayed for: a clean heart, a renewed spirit, the joy of salvation restored.

So do not give up on this season. Do not let it become routine or merely ceremonial. Let the Spirit lead you into whatever wilderness of honesty is necessary. Bring the whole truth of your life before God. Ask for what only God can create. And trust the one who has already proven, in the resurrection of his Son, that he is more than able to make all things new.

Let us pray.

Lord God, you drove your beloved Son into the wilderness, and he was faithful. You have called us, in these forty days, to follow him into places of honesty and need. Create in us clean hearts. Renew a right spirit within us. Restore to us the joy of your salvation. And lead us, through the cross and beyond it, into the life that only you can give. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sources Consulted

The Holy Bible, Christian Standard Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017. Mark 1:9-15; Psalm 51.

The Book of Common Prayer. New York: Church Publishing, 1979. Ash Wednesday Collect and Proper Liturgies for Holy Week.

R. Alan Cole. Mark: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1989.

Derek Kidner. Psalms 1-72: An Introduction and Commentary. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973.

N. T. Wright. Mark for Everyone. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004.