Our 40 days of Lent are supposed to mirror Jesus’s time in the desert, a place of physical desolation and sacrifice that heightens our awareness of our reliance on God for all.
In Sunday’s first reading from Exodus, Moses and his people are in the desert, and aren’t happy about it.
“But the people thirsted there for water, and the people murmured against Moses, and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our cattle with thirst?"
Don’t we all feel like that during Lent? We can be tempted to think our sacrifices are trivial, and more trouble than they are worth.
Yet we trust that our time in the desert bears good fruit. The thirst we feel for what we give up points us toward a thirst for what is eternal.
Listen to Jesus’s encounter with the woman at the well in the gospel of John chapter 4.
“Jesus said to her, "Every one who drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."
Father of Grace and mercy – help us to embrace our Lenten walk in the desert. May our spirit of fasting be joy filled, thirsting for things of heaven in lieu of those of this earth. Amen.
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