Isaiah 50.4-9a Psalm 31.9-16 Luke 22.14-23, 56 or Luke 23.1-49
Esaie 50.4-9a Psaume 31.9-16 Luc 22.14-23, 56 ou Luc 23.1-49
These wonderful, strikingly lyrical verses may well have been adapted by St Paul from an early Christian hymn. The theme of Jesus’s willing self-abasement on our behalf in this passage brings vividly to mind the contrast between His Father’s glorious affirmation of Him at his baptism in the Jordan and His almost immediate departure into the barren desert for a forty-day fast, followed by Satan’s three temptations when he was at his weakest and most vulnerable, from all of which He emerged victorious and fully prepared for the rigours of His three-year ministry and His ultimate sacrifice at Calvary. This wonderfully epitomises the essential nature of this Season; as someone once said, “the way up is down”, Lent being essentially a carefully and prayerfully considered response to Jesus’s “Come aside and rest awhile” and the psalmist’s “Be still and know that I am God”. To that end we temporarily set aside earthly cares - no matter how legitimate they may be - to make time to strengthen our allegiance to Him; in so doing we perceive ways in which we have allowed unhelpful worldly habits and unspiritual and self-centred inner clutter to obscure and weaken our day-to-day, hour-to-hour relationship with Him. He is more concerned with the constancy of our walk with Him than with our acts of Christian service and witness which, albeit vital evidence of our faith, should first and foremost be the fruits of that essential closeness to His heart.
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Notre Père apprécie qu’on soit en relation avec Lui quotidiennement beaucoup plus que nos actes de service et de témoin à son nom; ces actes sont importants mais ils sont en premier lieu les fruits de notre rapport avec Lui.
Simon Robbins
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