I have a childhood friend who didn’t get his act together for a long time.  

Not that he postponed any of the regular adult stuff.  

He had a job.  He got promoted.  He was married to a kind and patient person.  They had kid and house and dry-cleaning—all that jazz.  

He was a contributing member of society.  A completely nice dude.  

Except on weekends, which is when he would cut loose. 

He was like that guy in a fraternity who always got the party started. 

I don’t know, maybe he had been that guy in college.  

The problem, though, was that he was still that guy, even as his college years got further and further away, and the parties got smaller and smaller.  

Finally, it was just him, and the couch in the basement, and their old t.v., and whatever he was drinking.  

The word “intoxicated” comes from Greek originally, and specifically from the Greek word for arrow (toxon), and then, derivatively, from the word for the poison into which the point of the arrow was dipped (toxikon).  

That would ring true for my friend, whose life was being steadily poisoned. 

Eventually, his kind and patient wife admitted that her patience was running out and that soon enough, her kindness would be running out, too.  

To his credit, my friend heard that and understood how serious it was, and how hard for her to say, and he committed to making changes.  

He got his act together – or as he would be more inclined to put it, each day he recommits to keeping it together, one day at a time.  

He gives a lot of credit to his AA meeting, as so many people in recovery do.  

In his case, he’s from a fairly small place, and the meeting is in the basement of the big white church (one of our churches, I am proud to say) on the town green. 

And while he’s committed to the anonymity of the meeting, he has shared that the first time he went, he was astonished to see so many people he knew – some of them people he’d known his whole life.  

And he was not prepared for how warmly they greeted him…how glad they were to see him. 

That may make it sound as maybe if they were expecting him – and that’s not the case. 

But they knew quite clearly what it was to live with the secret (or perhaps not-so-secret) burden of their dependency, by whatever set of circumstances that dependency had come about, and they knew the grace to be found in facing the hard truth about themselves, and in staying focused. 

They wanted that grace for him, too and were committed to staying alongside him until he came to understand it and to ask for it, himself.  

Moreover, he came to understand in a way he never had before that the people we know – the people all around us, all the time…even the ones we’ve known for years…are almost certainly managing more, and struggling more than we might ever realize.  

Knowing this has made him a whole lot kinder.  

II.

I’m telling you all this because Lent is a strange season in so many ways.  

Its talk of self-denial can be hard to get behind—the sort of thing that can make our friends who aren’t religious shake their heads in disbelief.  

It seems old school, and not in a good way. 

But I don’t see it like that. 

I think Lent’s hopes are very much in line with the hopes of all those good people who were there to welcome my friend. 

When he finally decided it was time to make these big changes that he didn’t really know how to make…when he finally realized that something was poisoning his life…they were there for him, eager to help him find a better way. 

That’s what Lent is all about.  

III.

This morning, we have the Gospel of Mark’s brief account of Jesus’ own time in the wilderness. 

Matthew and Luke give much fuller versions of the story, with an extended back and forth between Jesus and Satan.  

Jesus is hungry and Satan challenges him to turn stones into bread.  Then Satan tries to tempt Jesus to summon the angels in the most public place in the country and tries then after that to straight up buy him off with worldly riches and power. 

There’s a lot going on in those versions.  

By contrast, Mark’s version is almost a blur, sandwiched between Jesus’ baptism and the incandescent start of his preaching career, when he pointedly takes up the mantle of John the Baptist, who has been arrested.  

Jesus steps up to show that this word received by John cannot be silenced.  This movement John began cannot be stopped.  

Yet it’s odd that a story about pausing—about grappling and growing and pushing oneself—gets told in just two short lines. 

Maybe Mark’s point is that it really wasn’t all that bad out there in the wilderness.  

After all, Jesus couldn’t have had much or even any poison that he needed to get out of his system. 

He’s Jesus. 

Except maybe alongside the fiery righteousness of John which Jesus shared with such passion, he was also grappling with the weight of just how much people are trying to carry.   

He knew in a way that even John had not, that the people we encounter, sometimes even the ones we’ve known for years, are managing more, and struggling more than anyone might ever realize.  

Perhaps even at this early moment, he was already no stranger to how disappointing people can turn out to be.  

Certainly, he would come to see that constantly in the journey he was about to begin, even in the words and silences, the actions and inactions of his closest friends.    

But that’s not all he saw.  

He also saw how loveable they were, anyway. 

He saw how flawed and lovely, cringey and magnificent, rotten and sweet they were.   

He knew they were capable of so much, yet capable of nothing without love to turn them into selves worth being.  

That’s what he sees in us, too.  

In that sense, our gospel this morning is less about how Jesus’ learns to engage his own temptations, and more about how he will seek to engage ours—knowing what only he can know, seeing as only he can see, but most importantly of all, loving us into new life, as only God can love us.

When we finally decide that it’s time to make big changes that we don’t really know how to make…when we finally realize that something is poisoning our lives…He is there for us, eager to help us find a better way. 

That’s the promise of Lent.  

May it lead us toward the only truth with the power to set us free. 

Amen.