Father Jim's Corner
On Entering Great Lent
In the Book of Exodus, the well known story of Israel's departure from the land of Egypt is recorded. In this story God told the Israelites to depart from their usual way of life and to begin a journey out into the desert. If you recall, the Israelites had been held in harsh slavery in Egypt for many years and were finally set free. In their journey to the promised land Moses led them through the Red Sea and into the wilderness. But after only a few days in the wilderness the people really began to complain. They were tired, hungry, and thirsty. Some of them even wished that they were dead! Egypt and slavery didn't seem so bad now that they were out in the middle of the desert. Their journey toward the promised land wasn't as easy as they thought it would be.
This Lenten season the Church reminds us that we have been set free from spiritual slavery. And just like the Israelites, we enter into the desert and travel toward the promised land of Holy Pascha. Lent is the exodus from our worldly and selfish preoccupations in order to be free to follow Christ. Lent reminds us that we are to be in the world but not of the world.
All too often, in the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, we forget that we have been set free from the slavery of sin by Christ's death and resurrection. As St. Paul reminds us in Romans 6 that we have been put on the path of salvation for in Christ "we have been freed from sin and enslaved to God�. The end of course is eternal life. Lent once again pushes us out of our own little Egypts and into the desert for our journey homeward to Christ. In the desert, though, one cannot live without water. The Lenten disposition of the Church calls us away from the ordinary occupations with which we fill our lives. Our lives have become so busy and so packed that there's often no room for anything more. By spending less time thinking about things to eat and things to do we give ourselves more time for communion with God. The Lenten desert isn't an escape from life, but rather a liberation from slavery which leads us toward "the living water" Who is Christ himself.
Lent is not a period where the focus is on what we can't eat and can't do. It's not simply a time of strict rules and regulations. Lent is a time for freedom from slavery to freedom in Christ. And as we journey home this Lenten season through the spiritual desert, remember the light of the paschal candle goes before us leading us home, just as the pillar of fire led the Israelites through the wilderness toward the promised land. "For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that One has died for all . . . and He died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for Him Who died and was raised for them"(2 Cor. 5:14-15).
Fr. James C. Moulketis
February 2010
Wyckoff, NJ
