Hitchhiker from Hell

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus gets baptized and then gets thrown into the wilderness with the devil. What a great baptism party!

This scripture, about being thrown into the wilderness, always reminds me of a scary movie, where the people are afraid of what is lurking around the next tree... you know, a movie like The Blair Witch Project or something.

I just finished reading a Stephen King book called Desperation that also comes to mind when I think of the temptations all around Jesus.  The book takes place in the southwest US desert, no man's land, and is horrific.

I don't pretend to know the horrors that Jesus went through in his journey in the wilderness, his time of fasting and fighting with the devil.  But it can't have been easy and it probably came close to breaking his will to go on.

During Lent, sometimes, we feel like we have the devil on our back. We drag ourselves down into depressing moods and negative attitudes, particularly if we have decided to give up something like caffeine or smoking or some other highly-addictive drug that keeps our moods calm. We have allowed a faithful Christian discipline become hijacked by the negative energy of evil.

We have allowed our ROAD TRIP to become miserable because we have picked up the hitchhiker from hell and we just can't get that hitchhiker out of the car or off the road. No matter how hard we try.

This Lenten season we will be journeying through a sermon series called RESURRECTION ROAD TRIP. We are looking at images and metaphors of what it is like to be on the road toward the cross, and ultimately on the RESURRECTION highway.  We have a long way to go before we reach resurrection. Starting with figuring out how to get that Stephen King-esque hitchhiker off our backs.

Thoughts? Email me or comment below.