The Christian life is a journey to God.

Following Jesus…going on The Way…living as a Christian in the world is truly about being led closer and closer into the very heart of God.

Now there’s a lot that comes from going on this journey.

Being moral isn’t the destination…but loving your neighbor as yourself is essential.

Creating a utopian kingdom in this world remains elusive…but trusting in God’s Kingdom means we denounce and resist the Kingdoms of Power, Greed, and Exploitation.

This journey isn’t about progressive states of greater and greater joy and peace and contentment…but it will involve trusting that in all the moments of joy, anguish, hope, and despair, God is holding you as a mother.

And while all of these are things that happen along the journey…we are told that ultimately the journey leads to God.

In Revelations Ch 21, when the New Earth is described, it is written, “The city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”

And just before that, “The home of God is among mortals.”

But Revelations is just drawing upon the visions from the prophets in the Old Testament.  People like Isaiah and Ezekiel who said that where this whole journey of creation is taking us is to God dwelling with all creation, and all creation dwelling with God.

And even in our reading today from 1 Peter, it is written, “Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous and the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God.”

The Christian life is a journey to God.

And that then brings me to Lent.

Lent is a very complex season, and this year in particular is complex.

Typically, the major themes of lent are things like repentance, forgiveness, mercy, sin, penitence.

These are not usually uplifting topics.

And this year, these rather difficult topics overlap with the one-year anniversary of not being in church together.  The one-year anniversary of school closing.

The one-year anniversary of when we could travel and see distant loved ones.

The one-year anniversary of COVID, the pandemic, and social distancing.

It is completely understandable to have trepidations this lent.

So if you are feeling any of that trepidation this year…I want to offer another side of Lent.

You know, in the early Church…one of the things that made Lent so distinctive was it’s connection to preparation for baptism.

The 40 days of Lent were a time when candidates for Baptism prepared intensely…and it would all culminate in their baptism at the Easter Vigil.

But it wasn’t just a journey for the candidates…the whole community was involved.

In the early church, during these 40 days, the entire Christian assembly would pray for the candidates for Baptism, those candidates would be honored and given special attention throughout the season.

And the assembly would spend time reflecting on their own baptisms, spending time in prayer recommitting themselves to their baptismal identities: children of God.

Sure, this of course involved repentance, being honest about sin and faults, being aware of the pain and brokenness of life.

But those weren’t the destination.  That wasn’t the centerpiece.

The centerpiece, the destination, was Baptism.

In Jesus’ baptism, we hear in the Gospel reading today: “This is my son, the beloved, in him I am well pleased.”

This was the promise to all the baptized.  They were being joined to Christ’s own death and resurrection, and being adopted as God’s own beloved children in whom God is pleased.

So…in Lent we see a tension.

On the one hand, Lent involves the struggle of fasting, asking for forgiveness, being honest about how we are shaped by the brokenness of the world.

And at the same time, we know that the place we are headed to, the ultimate purpose of this is that in the end we shall be completely made as children of the Divine, dwelling with in God.

This is a creative tension.  There is something we can learn from holding these two poles together.  It’s not that one is right and the other is wrong.  They both are right and both are incomplete on their own.

Many Christians throughout the last two millenia have discovered that God is present precisely in this tension:

The tension of struggle, loss, and pain

Being held within a larger context of love, liberation, and restoration.

God can be found in the movement back and forth between these things.

Getting too stuck on the miserableness, and failures, and pain will quickly lead to shame, guilt, and despair.

And being lost in the blessing of being “a child of God” leaves you disconnected from the reality of the world.

But if you can hold these two poles together in your life, you might find that it is liberating.

God came to us in the person of Jesus.  We read today in the Gospel that Jesus suffered in the wilderness for 40 days.

And that Jesus’ teacher John the Baptist had been arrested.  Jesus knew that by proclaiming God’s Kingdom, he was putting a target on his own back.

And Jesus is, in the Christian Way, the revelation of God: God coming to us to form a relationship with us…to dwell with us.

God is coming to dwell with you right where you are.

In the midst of your tears and grief…

Christ is there.

In the midst of your hope and joy…

Christ is there.

When you love your neighbor as yourself…

Christ is there.

When you confront injustice…

Christ is there.

While asking for forgivenss…

Christ is there.

While feeling God’s love…

Christ is there.

And yet, for some reason…it takes us a whole journey just to discover

God is here.