The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.

Welcome on this First Sunday in Lent. As many of you heard on Ash Wednesday, our theme for this Lent is struggle. 

This Lent we will consider the stories of those who have struggled to the point of giving up on God and faith in Him. We will see in these stories moments where people may have given up for a time, and who, in the end, were fortified because of their struggle. We may not see these people ever overcoming their struggles, but still committed to overcoming. 

Through these stories we will realize that our struggles are evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. The Holy Spirit moves in us and because of that we struggle against the things that separate us from Christ. We are not abandoned.

We hear of Jesus’ desert journey today. He fasts and is constantly tempted – the temptations did not just come at the end. The fast and journey were a struggle for Jesus, He did not just glide through it. He was spiritually and physically hungry and tired each day of the journey, beset by the same temptations we face in struggle – you’ll never make it, you’re not strong enough, give up. That is how we know He gets us, understands what we face, and why He gives us, through the Holy Spirit, the grace of perseverance.

I have printed and left for you the poem Ithaka by Constantine Cavafy. Please take it home and read it. Use it as an opportunity for prayer.

I first encountered this poem when it was read at Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ funeral by her longtime companion, Maurice Tempelsman.

Ithaka describes the journey of Odysseus, and in turn each of journeys, to our homeland. For us that homeland is heaven.

In the poem we encounter a prolonged journey. Along the way the good things in our life are increased if we keep our eye on the goal, face the struggles head on, refuse to focus on the negative, refuse to hurry, and relish each day necessary to get there. Along the way we encounter the unknown – making new discoveries about ourselves.

Each of us has their struggles on the road to our Ithaka and in Lent. In the poem’s epigram we hear: “Keep Ithaka always in your mind. / Arriving there what you’re destined for.” Let us hear that as “Keep heaven always in your mind. / Arriving there what we are destined for.”

In the end, as the poem speaks, we will understand what the struggle and journey has meant. 

Ithaka
C. P. Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Yet it was our infirmities that He bore,
our sufferings that He endured.

  • One of those moments.
  • The light goes on.
  • We see ourselves and the world in a new way.
  • Wow! Now I get it.

This day, this Good Friday, in the midst of pandemic and crisis, causes us to stop and absorb reality in a new way; to understand what life is really about. To focus on Jesus.

Brothers, sisters,

Jesus took on the world. He took on the sinful state of the world. Why?

When sin entered the world, along with it came all of sin’s consequences. Sickness, pain, poverty, abuse, injustice, war, disease, plague, destruction, pandemic – these and more. Man finds ever new ways to take the gifts of God and to corrupt them.

Along with all that came death. It was not death as we, in our Christian perspective and understanding, perceive it. It was death without hope, without a promise. It was a long, an eternal holding pattern.

The souls of the dead were warehoused.

Why did Jesus take on the sinful world? The why is answered in this: By Jesus’ love sacrifice for us He frees us of all hopelessness and reorients us. He reorients us. He offers us a powerful, beautiful, and hope-filled life pointed at the eternal. What life is about.

The Cross is not an occasion. Good Friday is not a day. It is profound change. Our future, our direction was changed this day. We gain today an understanding and appreciation for what life is about.

Remember those warehoused souls? It was Jesus’ first act – to free them from Sheol. He descended to hell, to the dead, and He freed them. From hopeless stasis to heavenly joy and glory, He freed them to what life is about.

Our current crisis brings this reality home. The light needs go on in our minds and hearts. What is life about? What have i been caught up in? Where have I been dwelling? What am I even praying for now? To go back to how it was? To get on with getting on?

  • One of those moments.
  • The light goes on.
  • We see ourselves and the world in a new way.
  • Wow! Now I get it.

We are each called to work out our salvation, as is said, in fear and trembling.

As we come to the Cross, let us pray – not for a going back, but for a going forward. Stop for this moment. Absorb the fact that Jesus took on fever, pain beyond measure, exhaustion, loneliness, dehydration, abandonment. He bore our infirmities to give us far more than the here and now. Let us focus our eyes, minds, and hearts on what we are truly living for and where out life will take us.

  • One of those moments.
  • The light goes on.
  • We see ourselves and the world in a new way.
  • Wow! Now I get it.

Through His suffering, My Servant shall justify many.

The door to heaven is now open. Let us live intent on making it through that door to life eternal. Let us appreciate what life is really about. That is the profound charge we have in the Cross. That is why.