The Lenten season reflects our gospel lesson today as Jesus “was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” After Jesus’ ecstatic baptism experience, Mark tells us that the Holy Spirit drove him into the wilderness, into that arid, sere place, no doubt, to give him the opportunity to be open to that still, small voice of God, the sound of sheer silence that Elijah experienced in the wilderness. The Holy Spirit calls us today to take advantage of these forty days to listen for the voice of God, to welcome the transforming love of God working in our hearts and minds. In response, we might make our Lenten prayer that of the Rev. M. William Anger in the 2012 Lenten Daily Devotional “Angels Among Us” from Calvary Episcopal Church in Front Royal, Virginia: “Help me, in Lent, to find islands of silence within my hours, to hear your gentle voice thundering your love. Break through the obstacle courses leading to my heart and enter in. Grant me a listening heart!”

If we are diligent about using this season to look at our spiritual lives, our relationship with God, we are likely to find that we have allowed the temptations of our culture to distract us from our walk with the Holy One. Sometimes we may even feel as if we are surrounded by the wild beasts of Jesus’ experience as we are captured and dragged away from the presence of God by the “devices and desires of our own hearts.” Peter, the epistler, cautions us to be vigilant: “Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.” (I Pet.5:8)

But God has the last word, Peter tells us: “The God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.” (I Pet.5:10) We trust God’s angels to wait on us just as they did Jesus as we pray: “Visit this place, O Lord, and drive far from it all snares of the enemy; let your holy angels dwell with us to preserve us in peace; and let your blessing be upon us always; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, p.140)