On this first Sunday of our own 40-day journey through Lent, I want us to look forward toward the horizon of Good Friday, and beyond. This isn't to belittle the crucifixion, skipping directly to the resurrection. Rather, let us explore the remarkable claim we make as a church that Jesus' journey of 40-days in the wilderness is a story of Good News for us in our 40-day journey of Lent:

• The 40-days of temptation in the wilderness are Good News because they tell of a God who has been on this Lenten journey before us, who walked our walk as fully flesh - fully vulnerable - fully subject to the challenges of the desert experiences of living.
• And despite the fact that at the completion of his time in the desert, overcoming all temptations, Jesus turned towards Jerusalem and never looked back, he began a ministry of reconciliation there in the desert that we continue this very day. The start of Jesus' ministry in the desert is a story of Good News, because it is a story of love that triumphs over all obstacles, even those we face here and now.

This is what Dietrich Bonhoeffer was talking about when he wrote the lines I read this past Ash Wednesday; "When God's child Jesus took on flesh, God truly and bodily took on our being, our nature...God bears our flesh and God bears us. And, where God is, there we are too-in the incarnation, on the cross and in the resurrection. We belong to God because we are in God. That is why the scriptures call us the body of Christ."

What Good News that, wherever we are, God is bearing our joys and our sorrows alongside us as if we were two oxen yoked together and bearing the strain of life stride by stride. Each of us made in God's image-and God in each of us - and wholly pleased to have us at God's side, as we are glad to have God at ours.

Our challenge during Lent, if we honor this season, is to examine ourselves; and as we are the Body of Christ, this means in turn, to examine the Church. Each of us bears God's image and God bears each of our needs as the Body of Christ, which includes St. Thomas' Parish and the Episcopal Church, as well as our sisters and brothers throughout the Anglican Communion. And if we are not ready for introspection about our identity as Christ's Body, there are scores of observers and commentators turning the spotlight of scrutiny on us from outside, telling us what we look like to the world as the Anglican Communion.