Hands full…

Here we are at the start of Lent. For us all an opportunity to reflect deeply on the wilderness experience of Jesus. For many this will not be an exercise in reflection because you will be caught in a very real wilderness experience…illness, bereavement, job loss, relationship breakdown for example.

We can feel very much as is our ‘hands are full’ and we can’t manage any more. This can bring a challenge for us in our life and in our faith, as St Augustine of Hippo puts it:

“God longs to give you something (the precious gift of himself) but you are not able to receive it because your hands are already too full”

Having our hands full has a few causes – life is busy and full on is the obvious one. A subtler temptation may also be there. We may try to be superman or wonderwoman covering all the bases in life – look at everyone else, they do…and then as Christians we look at Jesus. Now he appears to many like the ultimate superman, beneath his ordinary clothes and exterior he is superman who can draw on extraordinary powers to fix stuff

This is a distortion of Jesus. Look at the wilderness passage, a sequel to his baptism when God said ‘ you are my son’ …all the resources of God in him and with him, he is God incarnate… and yet when tempted in the wilderness he says, ‘man does not…’ he uses his humanity to defend against temptation, the devil and the desires for unhealthy power

Jesus is frail, hungry, vulnerable and uses his humanity in that moment – frail, vulnerable…sounding more like you and me, less superman, more human

And Jesus resists the temptation to show off his powers, to turn stones to bread, to kick Caesar off his throne or to test hid Father. He faithfully quotes the scriptures and endures…and that releases him from the clutches of temptation into a ministry of healing people, bringing light to lives and giving his life so that we may know God and have life in all its fullness

Lent is a time to empty our hands. To put down all that harms other people or tempts us to take a path that is not towards God

We need to find space to do this and develop habits that empty our hands and allow us to receive more of God’s goodness

One habit is switching to Fairtrade for Lent – tea, coffee, sugar…a daily habit that brings justice, fights poverty, loves neighbour.

Another habit use the Love Life, Live Lent booklet to do a Godly act every day in Lent

And the essential companion for any of these acts is to be still to empty out hands before God, offer all that fills out hands to our loving and good heavenly father

Church is open from 9am to 7pm everyday find a space here, find a space at home, find a space at work…

Yes to examining ourselves and our lives, yes to giving alms, yes to fasting, yes to prayer. At the heart of our resistance to the temptation to have our hands full is love and loyalty to the God who has already called us his beloved children in Christ, and who holds before us the calling to follow a path to complete freedom – in that freedom lies true happiness and fulfilment, which neither the world, nor flesh nor the devil can begin to imitate.