Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

We have entered into a season of repentance which in the English tradition is called Lent. The word Lent is an Old English word meaning “spring.” This information always seems to surprise us who think of Lent as a time of self-inflicted hardship.

People give up all kinds of things for Lent: chocolate, alcohol, meat, television and sexual activity. Fasting is the primary ritual of the season. Giving up rich food and living by a strict diet is a symbol of discipline. Such regimens are not easy to do.

The Lutheran tradition has continued to observe Lent as a time of discipline. In the German tradition Lent is called the season of the fast (Fastenzeit). The only change that Luther taught was that fasting and other forms of discipline not be turned into things that we do in order to earn God’s love.

We learn this especially in the Small Catechism where Luther poses the question, “When is a person rightly prepared to receive the sacrament?” To which he answers, “Fasting and other outward preparations serve a good purpose.” But Luther wants us to understand that when we come to the Lord’s table we are responding not to our own invitation but to the gracious invitation of the Lord himself. By eating and drinking at the table we simply believe our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled with God in this sacred meal. If fasting serves to make that meal all the more delicious and satisfying, then so be it.

Luther was a monk, and he knew from his own experience that fasting and other forms of self-denial are in themselves self-centered acts. They do not necessarily lead to renewal when they become efforts to take control and to prove that we are worthy of God’s love. Luther maintained a clear focus on the primacy of God’s invitation to return to the God of creation, the God of promise.

Christians in the modern period hear the story of the flood with great discomfort when they hear about the death and destruction involved. Our readings today in Genesis invite the hearer to know that God is a God of renewal. We must slug through the mess of this world to get there, but there it is at the end of the flood. A violent human race is reduced to a bare remnant, the family of the righteous Noah. The floods become a symbol of a world out of control, full of violence and bloodshed, and bent on self-destruction. The little ark bobs on the face of the deep, carrying God’s hope for all creation.

God is the promise-making God. God promises never to destroy the world again by flood and places his war bow in the heavens as a constant reminder of his promise. God renewed the world through the flood and the ark. It is an easy jump to see how the early Christians viewed baptism as a figure of the same eternal work of God on behalf of his creation. The author of First Peter writes,

God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-- not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. (3:20-22)

Lent is a time of renewal in which Christians learn once again how to use their baptism. Lent has been the primary time of preparation for converts to prepare for baptism which would take place at the Easter Vigil. Baptism has always expressed the foreboding elements of drowning and death, but this was seen as God’s way of putting down the old creature so that a new creature could rise from the gracious waters.

Nowhere is this image better captured than in the greatest English work on Christian faith, The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

The main character in this allegory of faith is called Christian. Christian leaves home in order to obtain eternal life. He sets out on a journey to the Celestial City. After numerous crises and detours and still by the Grace of God, Christian makes it to his destination. The last barrier between him and the Celestial City is a great river. Christian is so frightened by that river that he loses his senses and has no more memory of the gracious forces that had guided him to this point in his pilgrimage. Obviously the river is death. It is that unavoidable threshold that must be crossed. Christian is full of doubt and is reluctant to walk into the river. His fear caused him to see the river as a threat, even a punishment from God. Thus, Christian cannot see his goal which lies beyond the river.

Fortunately Christian is accompanied by a sure friend whose name is Hopeful. Hopeful attempts to comfort Christian by pointing out their destination, the Celestial City. Hopeful encourages Christian to enter the river. Christian is paralyzed by his conscience. He can think only of all his failures. To drown in that river would mean to die an eternal death of separation from God. Christian interprets his troubled state as punishment. Hopeful has a different explanation in mind:

These troubles and distresses that you go through in these Waters are no sign that God hath forsaken you, but are sent to try you, whether you will call to mind that which heretofore you have received of his goodness, and live upon him in your distresses. . . . Be of good cheer, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole: and with that Christian brake out with a loud voice, Oh, I see him again, and he tells me, When thou passest through the Waters, I will be with thee; and through the Rivers, they shall not overflow thee. Then they both took courage, and the Enemy was after that as still as a stone, until they were gone over. Christian, therefore, presently found ground to stand upon, and so it followed that the rest of the River was but shallow. Thus they got over.

Dear congregation, the temptation of Jesus did not come before his baptism in the Jordan. The temptation came afterward. The Gospel of Mark does not even tell us how Satan tried to tempt Jesus. He is tempted after learning that he is the Beloved Son, the new king of Israel. It would only stand to reason that we too are tempted after we have been baptized. We should, therefore, not be surprised. We should be ready!

The pattern of life offered in baptism is the daily promise of renewal by the proper use of our baptism. Christian baptism is understood to be our own drowning so that the old person can die and the new person can live.

The old person is the unrealistic self that wants to deny the ashes of Ash Wednesday and to pretend that we will not die. The old person is the same Adam who wants to be like God and who must learn over and over again that we cannot stand the pressure of pretending to be what we are not.

The new person that rises is not a passive wimp powerless in the world. The new person in baptism is the courageous person who knows him- or herself for whom we are—God’s children, set free from the slavery of self-servitude and empowered by the Spirit which not only drove Jesus into the wilderness, but we too are being driven into the wilderness of our society.

The baptized are still renewed in the wilderness where—like Jesus—we are with the wild animals while angels minister to us.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.