Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo + March 9, 2025
First Sunday of Lent
It’s easy to believe that deserts—literal or spiritual—are places of absence. But what if they are places of transformation? In the wilderness, Jesus does not despair; he discovers the deep well of God’s sustaining love. As we enter Lent, we are invited to see our own barren places not as voids, but as spaces where God's abundance can surprise us and fill us anew.
Sermon Transcript
From YouTube's automatically generated captions, lightly edited by ChatGPT for punctuation and readability.
Grace to you and peace from Abba, Father, Mother, Creator, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Savior, our Lord, our sibling, our friend—the one who guides us in this pilgrimage. And we said:
You know, I—I need to be, just for full transparency here with you, honest about all the things that cross my mind when I start reading passages for sermons, messages, and reflections. When I was reading the passage in the Gospel that Mary read for us today, I was thinking: Well, if the Spirit takes Jesus to the desert, I hope that the next time the Spirit takes me to the desert, it takes me to Egypt. I have never been there.
How are you today, my siblings in Christ? How was your week? How is your day so far?
I think, as I have been saying, this week has been a week where there have been maybe too many things and too many forces pulling us in different directions. In some ways, we have felt, Oh, great, wonderful! But at the same time, I believe there have been some feelings of disorientation—maybe feelings that we are continuing to walk in a wilderness, maybe walking in circles, coming back to the same place. And I think that this is life—this is the journey and the pilgrimage that we sometimes experience.
Yes, I was reading the passage in the Gospel of Luke these past days, and in order for us to grasp the message of this rich passage that we read today—actually, both of them—if I had a chance, believe me, we would spend the whole day talking about these two passages! But I'm going to focus on the Gospel right now.
To fully understand this famous story of the devil taking Jesus into the wilderness, we need to read chapter 3 of the Gospel according to Luke. In chapter 3, we have the story of Jesus' baptism. As David reminded us with the baptismal font there in the back of the church, God declares that God is pleased with Jesus. Jesus begins his life of ministry right after that.
Then, there is this section—which I’m not very attracted to—but it’s the genealogy of Jesus. It actually starts from Jesus and goes all the way back to Adam. The last verse of that genealogy concludes with the words: Seth, son of Adam, son of God.
This is interesting because it starts with the baptism of Jesus, where God says, This is my Son, and it concludes with Jesus, Son of God. Then, we move into chapter 4. This is the part where I told you I started thinking about Egypt. It says that the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness.
As I was reading this passage, maybe you have asked the same questions I ask when I read it: Why was it necessary for the Holy Spirit to take Jesus to the desert—to the wilderness? Couldn't he just go from the River Jordan and start teaching and leading people? Why in the world did he need to go through all this testing—or, as in other versions, we say, temptation?
How could being in the wilderness help him discover or realize his mission and his call?
And how does this experience of Jesus in the desert—the wilderness—relate to our own wilderness? To our own times when we feel that we are in deserted places?
And I think that the passage is actually presenting—bringing before us—a broader question. It's not so much about why the Spirit took him there, but how the wilderness—our wilderness—may help us see God's abundance in places where we believe God has left us alone, or where we think we cannot find life. How, in being in our wilderness, can God help us see abundance?
As we have been reading through this part of the liturgy, we are reminded that we are full to the brim and overflowing with blessings. So, I thought—maybe we need our own wilderness.
Have you been in the wilderness? Are you walking in the wilderness—perhaps at this chapter in your life? What might be some wilderness, some deserted places, that you are seeing in your journey right now? And how do you see the abundance of God in the midst of that wilderness?
A few days ago—actually, almost a week ago—when the program staff team here at Trinity met (we meet every Monday at 1 p.m.), David Greenlee led devotions. He shared a reflection written by Reverend Cameron Trimble, who, I learned, is a pilot. I was a little jealous because I have always wanted to be a pilot—but I digress.
She brought this reflection titled Greatness and Goodness, and I think it sheds light on the meaning and content of today’s readings from both the Old Testament and the New Testament. She begins by saying that all these movements—Make Our Nation Great Again or Bring America Back (which is the other version)—assume greatness, assume self-reliance, and assume an exceptional place among the peoples of the world.
But this idea of greatness, this aspiration to be great, is not new. It is a recurring human behavior that we see from the very beginning of time. If you remember, we start with Genesis—what happened with the two brothers, the sons of Adam and Eve? And then we can go story after story, seeing how humanity, as witnessed in Scripture, has always pursued greatness. Yet, in our desire to be greater than others, we often end up shattering lives and the hopes of many people around us.
I believe the reason for this is, as we have said many times before, there is a mindset of scarcity and fear in our hearts. But not only that—it also has to do with what we are facing right now.
When we feel that our ground is shifting, when we hear diagnoses telling us—or telling someone we love—that they have only a few days left… when we receive bad news, sad news, or confusing and disorienting news… when we see social media posts that change our mood and emotions, making us see others in different ways… messages and words that shatter our hopes—
Those are the times when you and I crave control and power. And this desire to be great creeps inside us.
I believe this is our attempt to confront our fear—our fear of not being relevant, of not being able to measure up to the standards that society sets for us.
So the question comes: What makes a life meaningful or abundant? Is that what we need, or is that what we want?
Pastor Jade—my wife—and I, sometimes when we go shopping, ask ourselves the question: Do we need this, or do we just want it?
Goodness, on the other hand, is the call that you and I have—not to greatness in the human sense, but to goodness. Goodness is about recognizing that you and I were created with goodness when God breathed into us the Breath of Life, when God declared, It is good.
When you and I lift others up and share what has already been given to us, we live into that goodness.
In the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 26—the last verse that Mary read today—it says: Levites, foreigners, and you—you all will feast on all the good things that your God has given to you and your household.
I believe this is what Jesus is helping us understand in his own pilgrimage, in his own wilderness: to see the goodness of what God has already given us, and to share these gifts—to let them overflow, reaching and bringing hope and life to those around us, just as we have received from others.
Jesus expands our definition of a full and abundant life. It is not about excess—it is about abundance.
God promises an overflowing bounty, like the first fruits from the ground in the story from Deuteronomy that we heard earlier today. And even in the wilderness, abundance happens—not necessarily in ways we expect or understand through the lens of our culture, but in the ways that God surprises us every day.
So maybe, my dear siblings in Christ, maybe that is why you and I need our own wilderness, our own pilgrimage—not as punishment, not as penance, but as a journey of discovery, growth, and transformation.
It is almost like going into the attic or the basement, finding an old chest or boxes, opening them, and discovering gifts that have been there for a long time—whether they are memories or things given to us that we had forgotten. These things bring life and joy.
In the same way, our faith journey—our pilgrimage—is about rediscovering the gifts that God has placed in our hearts, letting them flow freely, and allowing them to bring blessing to all creation.
Abundant life is not about avoiding hardship or escaping the wilderness. It is about dwelling in our doubts, fears, anxieties, and brokenness—while holding onto the assurance that even in those moments, we are not alone.
You and I do not need to try to turn stones into bread, or seek miracles just to satisfy our own desires.
We do not need to expect angels to catch us or to seek control over others in order to feel safe and secure.
Maybe it's time for us, in our wilderness, to dwell in our doubts, our fears, our anxieties, and our own brokenness—knowing that even in the midst of this brokenness, life flows.
Living in this tension of desolation and possibility is the call.
Remember that just two Sundays ago, we said that we have a high calling: to live in that tension of desolation and possibility.
We are called to resist the temptation to greatness—not alone, but through mutual support, prayer, and solidarity with one another.
We are called to center our lives around the values of the Life-Giver, our generous and sustaining God, who says today:
"I have given you everything. Let it flow, and receive what is flowing from others, so that you may experience abundant life."
To conclude, in the reflection I mentioned earlier by Reverend Cameron Trimble—or perhaps another I read—there was a quote from Oscar Wilde, from De Profundis. He writes:
"Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground."
May our wilderness—where we sometimes experience sorrow—become the holy ground where you and I also experience the abundance of God's grace.
Because even in the desert, the Lord is with us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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