First Sunday in Lent (Year B, RCL)

This year during Pride month, God seems to have a lot of rainbow defenders online. But they aren’t getting the Bible story quite right.

Not just Advent

Does Jesus hide from the wild beasts? Hurl rocks at them? Mark doesn’t say.

Advent must respond in some consequential way to the widening uncertainty of the living of our days.

From where I'm sitting in 2021, it seems like maybe they are.

Jesus is attended to by angels—and wild beasts.

In God's kingdom, sometimes less is more.

The disruptive way of the Lamb

The wilderness is hard enough. Kindness helps.

When we give something up, we realize that its goodness doesn't depend on our ownership of it.

What good is a wilderness experience?

Who tests Abraham, or Jacob, or Jesus—and why?

Lent began as a time of preparation for the covenant of baptism. The Year B Lenten readings very much ring out this theme of covenant, starting this Sunday with the covenant with Noah and its interpretation in 1 Peter as the covenant of baptism. The coming weeks feature the covenants with Abraham and with Moses and finally the covenant written upon our hearts in Jeremiah 31. Developing the theme of covenant might be an edifying way to let these Lenten scripture readings prepare congregations for Holy Week—especially the high drama of the Easter Vigil, centered on the waters of baptism.

There’s a reason that flood stories are so universal: we fear wiping ourselves out through our own violence.

In a culture that finds repentance unintelligible, impractical, or unnecessary, we are called to witness to its intelligibility, beauty, and importance.