Forty days and forty nights
Thou wast fasting in the wild,
Forty days and forty nights
Tempted and yet undefiled.

Let us thine endurance share,
And awhile from joys abstain,
With thee watching unto prayer,
Strong with thee to suffer pain.

And if Satan, vexing sore,
Flesh or spirit should assail,
Thou, his vanquisher before,
Grant we may not faint nor fail.

Keep, O keep us, Saviour dear,
Every constant by thy side,
That with thee we may appear
At the eternal Eastertide..

Blessed be God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever. Amen

 

From Easter to Pentecost:

Allelulia. Christ is risen!

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia

 

In Lent and other penitential occasions:

Bless the Lord who forgives all our sins;

His mercy endures for ever.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

 

Let us pray:

Almighty God, to whom all hearts be open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

This prayer is omitted during Lent and Advent:

Glory to God in the highest, and peace to God’s people on earth.  Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks, we praise you for your glory.  Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world: have mercy on us; you are seated at the right hand of the Father: receive our prayer. For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father.  Amen.

 Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us.

Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan: Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. 

Amen.

Genesis 9:8-17

God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Psalm 25:1-9

Ad te, Domine, levavi

1 Peter 3:18-22

Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you– not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God

All stand for the Acclamation and Gospel reading.

Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!

Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Praise to you, O Christ, king of eternal glory!

The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to:

Mark 1:9-15

After the Gospel reading

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

Mark uses the initial words of his gospel to move the reader very quickly into the story of Jesus, with none of the preliminaries found elsewhere.  In 11 brief verses, we see Jesus in three critical settings. First, his baptism, revealing him as the anointed one of God, is the starting point of all.  The third setting is the beginning of the rest of the story – Jesus emerging among the people, to begin his ministry of proclaiming the Good News, living out, and bringing to human kind the salvation of God.

But between these, Mark describes a second setting, one that flowed from the first and provided empowerment for the third.  Immediately after his baptism, “the spirit drove him into the wilderness” – a separate place, far away from the hungry crowds that would follow him in the months ahead.  This was the only place, and the only sustained time he would have, to wrestle with the forces that work against the will of God.

It wasn’t a choice for him to go there; it was a godly necessity.  The Spirit drove him into the wilderness, not like a chauffeur in a limousine, but rather like a cowboy prodding a steer.  Before he could begin work as God’s beloved, Jesus had to face hard realities – he had to prepare for the test, which would eventually ensure his obedience to God, even unto death.

The test involved beating down temptations to follow the ways of the world, instead of the pathway to God – temptations to give in, to the seductive powers that work against love and grace.  Though alone, Jesus was comforted, in the presence of angels, by the same Spirit that announced him as God’s beloved, and that required his 40-day test in a dark place of ultimate danger.

And then there is this passage in today’s reading from Mark: “He was with the wild beasts.”  This amplifies the difficulty of Jesus’ time in the wilderness, and serves as a symbol of the strength of the temptations that confronted him.  The Greek word used for “beasts” refers to animals with a brutal nature – not Isaiah’s image of lambs lying down with lions.  Being tempted by Satan was as demanding as wild animals threatening to devour him!

St. Mark reveals a vivid scene, but with briefest description, leaving us to flesh out the details.  Perhaps the image of the beasts can help us understand the lonely ordeal of Jesus’ experience.  He had to face down the powers that would seek to prevent him from doing God’s will in his coming ministry.

Proof that Jesus defeated those powers – completely, utterly and decisively – is found in the way he conducted himself, after he left the place of temptation.  Afterward, Jesus moved out among God’s people, loving them as God loves, teaching them about God, and finally proving that we are loved by God without condition, by his making us all worth dying for!

In responding to that gracious love, we find ourselves once more in the solemn season of Lent.  As today’s collect reminds us, we, too, are “assaulted by many temptations.”  We are called to dedicate ourselves in our “weaknesses”, to face the same tests that Jesus confronted in hiswilderness – but not alone, for we each can find God “mighty to save” us.

In our various kinds of wilderness experiences, we, too, struggle against the wild beasts of our times, and our lives.  When doing so, we can learn from Jesus.  In the wilderness, he encountered all the evil that there is – because he found it in himself, in his own humanity.  For in every human being lies the best of God and the worst of evil.

In the wilderness, the aim of the tempter was to move Jesus from faith in God, to doubt.  The forces that work against God also press us toward selfishness, and away from love.  Jesus resisted temptation by keeping himself connected to God.  And that is exactly how we can resist the beasts of our lives, how we can overcome the evil that lurks within us, and the sin that is a part of us – all that lingers in the midst of our humanity.

We resist, as Jesus did, by staying connected to God, through the power of the scriptures, prayer, and the sacraments, and through regular self-examination and confession, through repenting of our sins, accepting God’s forgiveness, and leading renewed lives. By these means we defeat evil, and overcome temptation.

Yes, we can defeat these beasts, just as Jesus did, by staying connected to God.  And we don’t do it alone.  As the angels waited on Jesus in his wilderness experience, we are sustained by the Holy Spirit of God, and through the aid of God’s beloved disciples in our midst, our brothers and sisters in Christ, who minister to us and help us face down the beasts of our lives, as they face down theirs.

Just as Jesus’ time in the wilderness came after his baptism, so does ours, as our Christian formation continues to flow from that foundation.

Self-examination during Lent comes as essential reappraisal, in the midst of our journey in faith, and takes its form in our baptismal renunciations. As we promise at baptism, we commit to turning away from “all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God”, that “corrupt and destroy the creatures of God.”

The beasts that we encounter in our wilderness reflect the power of evil that is real and active in our lives.  If we dare become self-aware, we see it, hear it, and feel it.  It is a power that gets inside us, and an influence that comes from outside of us – a force that draws us toward what is wrong.  It is personal, because it deals with each of us as a person; deals with each of us individually, in our darkest and most trying moments.

Evil can enter our lives when hard decisions need to be made, and we encounter it most strongly in those areas where we are weakest, in our desire to serve ourselves first, through greed, excessive pride, divisiveness and prejudice, gluttony of food and material possessions, the desire to control others, cowardice, faithlessness and many other forms of selfishness, that draw us away from the way of God.

Above all, the temptations we fight are destructive.  Satan’s beasts find a way to poison, and harm what is good and loving in the world, and in ourlives. The evil that works in us is our enemy, seeking to grab hold of us to work against God, and against our brothers and sisters, whom we hurt when we give in to such powers. The evil also works against us individually, eating us from the inside out, like a cancer.

The temptations that Jesus met in the wilderness are also our temptations, drawing us to a selfishness that prevents us from showing love and respect to others, pressing us to manipulate the world into the form that we want, rather than that which God intends.

But the power of God’s love can help us resist the temptations and defeatthe beasts that dwell among us.  From our baptism, we gain the sign of the cross, that marks us as Christ’s own forever.  Our success in resisting evil, turning from our sins into lives renewed in love, moves us beyond our time in the wilderness.  And as recipients of the Good News Jesus proclaims, we are empowered by the reality of God’s kingdom, that has come near, and can become a people, who, with God’s love, can transform the world.  Amen

Please stand for the Nicene Creed.

Let us together affirm the faith of the Church.

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary,

and became truly human.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified,

who has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come.  Amen.

Let us pray for the world and for the Church:

Prayers of intercession are now said and at the end of each prayer the priest says:

Lord in your mercy,

Hear our prayer.

or

Lord hear us,

Lord graciously hear us

At the conclusion of the prayers the priest says:

Almighty God, who has promised to hear our prayers.

Grant that what we have asked in faith we may by your grace receive, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 Jesus said: Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

or

God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

THE CONFESSION:

God is steadfast in love and infinite in mercy, welcoming sinners and inviting them to the Lord’s table.

Let us confess our sins in penitence and faith, confident in God’s forgiveness.

Merciful God, our maker and our judge, we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do: we have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbours as ourselves; we repent and are sorry for all our sins, Father forgive us, strengthen us to love and obey you in newness of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Almighty God, who has promised forgiveness to all who turn to him in faith, pardon you and set you free from all your sins, strengthen you in all goodness and keep you in eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

THE PEACE:

The congregation stands.

We are the Body of Christ.

His Spirit is with us.

 

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

And also with you.

Please greet each other with a sign of peace.

Be thou my guardian and my guide,
And hear me when I call;
Let not my slippery footsteps slide,
And hold me lest I fall.

The world, the flesh, and Satan dwell
Around the path I tread;
O, save me from the snares of hell,
Thou quickener of the dead.

And if I tempted am to sin,
And outward things are strong,
Do thou, O Lord, keep watch within,
And save my soul from wrong.

Still let me ever watch and pray,
And feel that I am frail;
That if the tempter cross my way,
Yet he may not prevail.

THE OFFERTORY

Blessed are you, God of all creation. Through your goodness we have these gifts to share. Accept and use our offerings for your glory and the service of your kingdom.

Blessed be God forever.

 Let us pray

We do not presume to come to your table, merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your manifold and great mercies.  We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose nature is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of your dear son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us.  Amen.