I am indebted this morning to Herbert O’Driscoll, a priest of the Church of Canada, who provides us a valuable perspective on this morning’s Gospel. The backbone of what I share with you this morning is from his wise and discerning heart.

The Spirit of God has led Jesus into the wilderness for a forty-day sojourn of soul-searching. Certainly the number forty and the location of Jesus’ temptations are not lost on us. Moses and the Israelites spent forty years wandering in the wilderness, and they too were tempted. When the words “forty” and “wilderness” are around the Bible, you can count on something important going on.

In the Gospel this morning, Jesus is questioned by a lawyer. In both the Old Testament as well as in the Gospels, the setting of many of the stories is either a law court or a controversy that involves a lawyer. This is certainly the setting of the Gospel this morning.

Where and how does Christian life begin? Some people would say very clearly that it begins when you make a conscious act of faith in Jesus Christ, when you give your life to him, confessing your sins; some would say that it begins when you are baptized – that even as a tiny infant you have begun your Christian life because God has called you and made you his own in baptism.

I met an Englishwoman this week, and when I mentioned this service, she told me of her visit to Bethlehem several years ago, and her horror when she saw the wall surrounding that city. She said she can no longer see a manger scene without thinking of that wall, complete with bullet holes and graffiti.

In the good old days, that is 25-30 years ago, it was possible to walk the old Roman road from Jerusalem to Jericho, the road that Jesus would have walked when he came down from the Galilee and made his way from Jericho to Jerusalem. It is no longer possible to walk that incredible road because of the building of the Israeli settlements. But, in the days before the building of the settlements, pilgrims/ course members from St. George’s College frequently walked that desert road from Jerusalem to Jericho, all downhill. The first Dean of St. George’s College, John Wilkinson, actually took one of the courses on the trek from Jericho to Jerusalem, all uphill. After he did that, John was reported having said, ‘once was enough.”

On this day in 1898, at 10:00 o'clock in the morning, on the feast day of St. Luke the Evangelist, this Cathedral was consecrated for use according to the worship and practice of the Church of England, as part of the Anglican Communion. The Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt. Rev'd John Wordsworth, representing the Archbishop of Canterbury at the request of the Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, the Rt. Rev'd George Francis Popham Blyth, took the principle role in the consecration, which was witnessed by a host of Anglicans, and ecumenical and political representatives from throughout the holy city. As near as I can tell, you are sitting in the very chairs used on that morning, 111 years ago today.

Throughout the Anglican Communion, your beloved bishop is known and respected as a bridge-builder committed to interfaith initiatives for reconciliation and lasting peace. By word and by action he heralds hope for the peoples of the Holy Land. In his Easter Message this year – he wrote of our witness to the Risen Lord, “we are defined by our love, by our compassion.” I look forward this week to visiting a number of parishes, schools and health care facilities operated by the diocese. I am hopeful we will also see the Baptismal site where you plan to build a church and retreat centre to serve as a place of pilgrimage, worship and education in the ways of peace.

We get a very strong sense of Lent being a cosmic event from the Readings from Holy Scripture prescribed for today, the First Sunday of this Season. We hear of God’s covenant which establishes on a fresh footing the relationship of love and protection between God and the whole of creation. We hear of the resurrection of Jesus Christ who sits at the right hand of God with angels, authorities and powers made subject to him. We hear also of the testing and the trying of God’s love in the way in which the Son is driven by the Spirit out into the wilderness and, in his temptation, has for company the wild beasts and the angels is attendance on him. All of this is strange in the extreme for a modern audience. But we do see and feel God at work as God. Difficult Seasons like Lent are like this and somehow have to be, if we are to be brought beyond.