Jesus enters the wilderness after his baptism, and after forty days of fasting, he is hungry. Into this place of vulnerability comes this temptation to turn the very stones lying around him into bread. The temptation is not only to prove himself, to do the miraculous thing only the Son of God could; it is to taking matters into his own hands, refusing to trust God to provide for his needs. It is to use his power to alleviate his vulnerability. But he doesn’t. He stays in it, this vulnerable, weak, hungry place. He names that food is not the only thing he needs—that *we* need, us humans. He stands with humanity, hungry and vulnerable, and refuses to take the easy way out, the quick fix, the making-it-happen. He waits, and he is at rest, knowing the Father will care for his needs. We aren’t very good at this, are we? We will usually choose the easiest fix to our hunger, to fighting (or hiding) our vulnerability. We use our power to gather what we think we need. What if, instead, we leaned into this way of Jesus – this trust that the Father would care for us in our vulnerability and need. That it is actually true that we need more than bread, and that we can rest in God’s care. That we don’t need to use our power to fight to feed ourselves (in whatever way we are aware of our need for nourishment). That our job isn’t to make something happen, but to receive true rest in the midst of it all. What might that change for us? For the ones around us? Let’s sit with Jesus in the desert this week and learn how to be-with our hunger, and be-with God, and be at rest. What does this particular temptation in the desert bring up for you? How do you tend to respond to hunger (whether literal I-need-food hunger, or a more metaphorical picture of desire in general)? To your own? To others’? What might Jesus-in-the-desert have for you, this Lent?

Posted by Jamie Bonilla at 2022-03-14 14:01:46 UTC