A sermon for the First Sunday in Lent
March 9, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, Hot Springs, AR
Readings: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13
Why would you want to go into the wilderness, into the desert? Before I went to seminary, I was the children and youth minister at St. Thomas’ in Springdale. Part of my job was to teach Sunday school. Whenever I taught a Bible story that took place in the desert, like our gospel today, I would get a sandbox, about 2 foot by 4 foot. The curriculum we used would give me a sort of script. It would sound something like this: “The desert is a big place, and we have a small piece of it here today. The desert is a strange and wild place. At night it gets very cold. During the day it gets very hot. There are wild animals, and not very much food or water. The desert is not a place you want to go to alone.”
Continue reading “Called into the Wilderness”
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