15th February 2026

Message 15/02/26 – Lent 1 – Martin Mowat

Readings: Matthew 3:1-6 & 13-17, Matthew 4:1-11

Intro.  This Wednesday will be Ash Wednesday, so called, apparently, because for over a thousand years, many believers mark their foreheads with a small amount of ash, perhaps in a cross, as a sign of their commitment to keeping Lent.

We’ve just heard two passages from Matthew’s gospel that are probably quite familiar to most of us. The second is about Jesus’ experience in what the Bible calls, “the wilderness”.  What does that mean, exactly?

As a child my understanding of the word was influenced by the fact that at the school I attended in Northamptonshire, between the ages of 8 and 13, we had an area of woodland where we could play and have fun.  We called “the wilderness”. 

We dressed in boiler suits and built huts. Some were above ground, in the trees, some were on the ground, but the most interesting ones, the ones that most of us preferred, were under-ground.  

At the beginning of each term we would get together in gangs, and start digging.  When the hole was deep enough, and wide enough for the whole gang to sit in, we would gather beams and planks to make a roof, that would then be covered with the spoil from the excavation in a vain attempt to hide it from the other gangs.  But before we could go into them, a school master had to come and test that the strength of the roof would carry his weight. Rather him than me! Then we could play war games, cowboy games, you name it.  We loved our wilderness. At the end of every term, though, all the huts had to be dismantled and filled in.

But that’s not what the Bible means by “wilderness”. 

Far from being a place for fun and games, it was not an easy place to be at all. It was an isolated place, a place of danger, of testing, and of trust in God's care. 

The “wilderness” is a place of preparation, but not one of permanent dwelling. God doesn't intend to leave us in the desert places of our lives. He uses them to develop us and prepare us for the places He is leading us to. This is a pattern that we can see over and over in the Bible.

Even ourselves, we sometimes talk, don’t we, about having “wilderness experiences”? 

Jesus chose the wilderness, because He knew that, although it would be tough, and although he would be alone, tempted and tested, there would be strength and authority to be gained there by being alone with His Father. 

If you’re having a “wilderness experience” at the moment, no matter how isolated you may feel, God wants to come into your wilderness, into your desert place. He wants to be near you, and to speak to you.

Going back to the two Bible passages that Tess and Brigit just read to us, let’s look at the background.

John the Baptist had been announcing that the Old Testament promises of a Messiah were about to be fulfilled.  People were excited because prophecy-wise God had been silent for several hundred years.  

So, this was something new, something different, it was extra-ordinary, and so they flocked to the bank of the river Jordan where he was baptising, to hear his preaching and his prophecies.

Then, one day, out of the blue, Jesus himself turned up, asking John to baptise him.  Can you imagine the scene, the commotion? Charlotte and I were amused recently to see a painting of Jesus that day, dangling one foot in the water’s edge. The baptism that he received wasn’t like that, though.  It was one of total immersion, a believer’s baptism. But that’s for another day. 

And then, strangely, he disappeared off the scene, and took himself off, voluntarily, into this “wilderness” that I was just talking about. It wasn’t a woodland playground, it was the arid, rocky, desert area that runs from north of Jericho to the southern end of the Dead Sea.  Not a friendly place by any stretch of the imagination. Hunger and thirst were inevitable. 

But it was a place of separation where he would be uninterrupted. In Matthew 6:6 Jesus’ advice on prayer is “go into your room and close the door”. “Separate yourself.”  How can we use this season of Lent to “shut the door” on distractions and seek time alone with God? I have an idea that I’ll share with you in a moment.

So Jesus was in a place where he could talk to his Father, uninterrupted by the crowds that would soon be following him wherever he went.

It was also a place to separate himself from the values of the world, a world where money and power make for a secular society where anything goes. Christianity is not about compromising with worldly values, it’s about leading them. It is undeniable that Jesus, throughout his ministry, was counter cultural. That’s why the Pharisees didn’t like him, because he held to God’s standards revealed in the OT. Not the ones that they had invented subsequently.

So here’s my idea.  Suppose, this lent, you fast from social networking and use that time to read your Bible and pray.  Start with the New Testament, perhaps, with Matthew’s gospel.  I dare you to give it a go and see how, come Easter Day, it improves your quality of life.

For Jesus the wilderness was also a place where he could engage in spiritual warfare, where he could say to Satan, “come and get me if you can”. 

Jesus’ temptations attacked three soft spots that are common to all of us. The first concerned the lust of the flesh, the second concerned the pride of life and the third one concerned the desire for an easy route to power and control.

How did he defend himself? With O.T. scriptures. 

1. Deuteronomy 8:3 Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God

2. Deuteronomy 6:16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

3. Deuteronomy 6:13 Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.

This Lent, we are invited into the wilderness with Jesus, to say “up yours” to Satan, and watch Jesus take the crown of victory.

When Jesus walked from his baptism into the wilderness, he still had the name “beloved” still ringing in his ears. Tess read from the NIV, And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” but the KJV says “And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”  That was all he needed to sustain him. 

You, too, are “beloved” …. .  I’m going to come back to that thought at the end of our service.

Scripted from here - This Lectio 365 Lent series that we are embarking on draws its inspiration from the Desert Fathers and Mothers who, in the third century AD, left the sophisticated metropolitan cities of Cairo and Alexandria to pursue lives of prayer and deep holiness in the wilderness. 

These remarkable men and women of faith were perhaps some of the most radical prayer warriors of all time. And surprisingly, having fled the world, they began to change it. Hundreds of thousands of people began trekking out into the wilds of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, seeking counsel and prayer from these holy men and women.

Known simply as the Desert Fathers and Mothers, their lives became a potent, prophetic challenge to the depravity of contemporary society and the compromises of the Church. Communities grew up around these prayer warriors, laying the foundations for Christian

monasticism to come.

What might it look like for us to be people who seek separation in order to pursue communion with Jesus, and the spiritual growth that would result? We’ll see how to apply some of the principles we see in the Desert Fathers and Mothers within our contemporary context?

Over the next seven weeks we will be looking at a whole range of topics, some that may be familiar and others very unfamiliar: 

◊ The desert as a place of prayer

◊ The desert as a place of testing

◊ The desert as a place of silence and solitude

◊ The desert as a place of self-denial

◊ The desert as a place to find wisdom

◊ The desert as a place to grow in humility

◊ Finally, on Palm Sunday, the desert as a place to carry with us on our Christian journey. 

In closing this morning, let’s just take a couple of minutes to ponder on a meditation by Jan Richardson from Circle of Grace. It’s called “Beloved Is Where We Begin”

If you would enter into the wilderness, do not begin without a blessing.

Do not leave without hearing who you are: Beloved,

so named by the One who has travelled this path before you.

Do not go without letting it echo in your ears, and if you find it is hard to let it into your heart, do not despair. That is what this journey is for.

I cannot promise this blessing will free you from danger, from fear, from hunger or thirst, from the scorching of sun or the fall of the night.

But I can tell you that on this path there will be help.

I can tell you that on this way there will be rest.

I can tell you that you will know the strange graces that come to our aid only on a road such as this,

-       graces that fly to meet us bearing comfort and strength,

-       graces that come alongside us for no other cause than to lean
themselves toward our ear, and with their curious insistence
whisper our name:

“Beloved”

“Beloved”

“Beloved”