Lent Meditation: Day 5 - February 22, 2026

📖 Scripture Verse

“Therefore [Jesus] had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.” Hebrews 2:17-18

🕯️Meditation

The beginning of Lent may seem like a strange time to reflect on Christmas, but the meaning of the Incarnation—God becoming fully human in Jesus—is not simply that God is with us, but that God is like us.  Jesus fully entered into the human condition, so that in his humanity, he could carry us all to God for reconciliation and new life.  Jesus understands human frailty.  He was tested.  He was tempted.  This testing and tempting was not to show us how good Jesus is and how bad we are, but so that in Jesus, the times where we have been tested and failed, where we have been tempted and have yielded to temptation, thereby causing harm to others and to ourselves, could be healed.  Christ’s church is not a mutual cheering section for the righteous, but a field hospital for the wounded.  Christ’s sacrifice is not an appeasement to a vengeful deity, but a loving God bringing medicine for a hurting humanity through his own Son, our brother

In the great Christmas hymn, “Joy to the world”, Isaac Watts wrote “No more let sins and sorrows grow, not thorns infest the ground; he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.”  He is drawing on the image from Genesis 3 of the spoiling of Eden due to human sin—the promise of Christmas begins to come to fruition in the life and ministry of Jesus when he is tempted in the wilderness, undoing curses that we might flourish.

🙏 Prayer

Jesus my friend and sibling, you know the depths of my humanity, both my frailty and my dignity.  Bring the medicine of your most holy life to my sin-sick soul. Be strong for me where I am weak. Help me to be like you.  Amen.

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