The Logic of Lent: The First Sunday in Lent (February 22, 2026)

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be alway acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

"God hateth nothing that he hath made." These seven words from the Ash Wednesday Collect, which we carry in our hearts throughout this Lenten season, are more than a comforting sentiment. They are a dogmatic anchor. We live in a world that often feels like a "dehumanizing cycle of violence and sin"—a world where we are prone to believe that we are defined by our failures, our appetites, or our brokenness. But the Church, in her wisdom, begins our Lenten tithe by pointing us elsewhere. She points us to the very source of existence: the Holy Trinity. You may notice that during Lent, our liturgy feels heavier, more layered; we pray multiple collects, we pile prayer upon prayer. This isn't just a quirk of the 1928 Prayer Book. It is a reflection of a profound reality: our life is caught up in a "three-act story." Everything we do in these forty days—every fast, every alms-deed, every sigh of confession—is our response to a God who is not a lonely monarch, but an overflowing fountain of Love.

In 1 John 4:8 we’re told “God is love.” Everything flows from that reality. But love requires relationship. Because God is three persons, there is a community: the Father loves his only-begotten Son. But we have to understand that God doesn’t change and has always been love, so the Son has always been begotten; there wasn’t a time where he was not. The bond of love between the Father and the Son can be called the Holy Spirit. The love they share wasn’t lacking anything; it was completely and entirely perfect. God didn’t create the world because he needed it but because the love shared between the Father and Son was overflowing. As we pray in the Collect for the day: God hateth nothing that he has made. To put it positively, we can say he loves everything he has made. By understanding the Trinity, we can better understand God’s actions in the world.

We worship one God in Trinity one the Trinity in unity. This means emphatically emphasizing the unity of the Godhead while delicately preserving the distinction between the Persons. On a practical level, we can say that God died on the Cross because Jesus is God, but we can’t say the Father died on the Cross because Jesus is the Son, not the Father. At the same time, we should acknowledge that the qualities of God are shared by the persons: God is love means we can say the Father is love, the Son is love, and the Holy Spirit is love. It’s also important that we remember the three persons share a singular will; the Father doesn’t have his own agenda that’s distinct from what the Son wants, nor is the Holy Spirit a rogue agent. We see that in this morning’s Gospel when the devil tempts Christ to turn stones into bread; Jesus refuses because “Man doesn’t live by bread alone but by every word that comes out of hte mouth of God.” Jesus doesn’t need to turn the stones into bread; he refuses to use his divine power for an agenda apart from the Father. The Father is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, but he created through the Word and the Holy Spirit hovered over the face of the waters. It was a Trinitarian act, but the Father is often called the fount of being and God’s creative act is a manifestation of his great love. The Son became incarnate; he took on flesh and blood and a human soul, uniting them to his divine person. The purpose of that great kenotic action was to continue the expression of God’s love for us. Because of sin, that love brings about our redemption; forgiveness is found because the Son offered himself to the Father on the Altar of the Cross. It’s an offering that was accepted by the Father as evidenced by the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. But in the physical absence of the Son, the Father and the Son send the Holy Ghost to us. “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit comes to bring us into the divine life. The Christian life wouldn’t be possible without him. Together, the three persons of the Trinity love us and we see that clearly in our creation, redemption, and regeneration.

What we call the Gospel is that three act Trinitarian story as it comes into contact with us, even after we spit in the face of our creator who have been stuck in a dehumanizing cycle of violence and sin. We have been given a gift we could never deserve: communion with the divine. When we first comprehend the ugliness and horror of our sin, the proper response is penance, sorrow for our sins because we recognize that we have offended God. On Ash Wednesday, the Morning Prayer reading is Jonah 3-4 and the Ash Wednesday liturgy makes reference to it a few times: when the people of Nineveh heard the message of the prophet, they tore their robes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and called a solemn fast. But the purpose isn’t just to mourn our sins; it’s to bring us to confession. We confess our brokenness, we confess who we are without God, we confess that we have transgressed against his holy law, we confess that we are utterly dependent on him. Every confession is meant to bring about absolution, the forgiveness of sins. Absolution isn’t just about being released from punishment; forgiveness frees us from burdens placed on us by sin so that we can become who God wants us to be. Each of these steps of the Gospel working in us—compunction for sins, confession, and absolution—are ongoing. We may often find ourselves moving backwards and forwards through them. But despite our oscillation, over time, we prayerfully make progress towards holiness.

Throughout the season of Pre-Lent, and then culminating on Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, we were confronted with sin and given the chance to confess our sins—something that is always available to us. Lent then bursts onto the scene, asking what it means for us that we are forgiven? During this season, we respond to God’s love for us by fasting; we set aside temporal things which are good and that he made so that we can attain mastery over our passions and, most importantly, so that we can recognize him as our ultimate good. Another emphasis of Lent is almsgiving. We give money to the poor out of thanksgiving for the fact that while we were sinners, God loved us enough to die for us. And so we practice loving those we come into contact with, seeing that they were created by God and the he died for them. And finally, during this Lenten season, we seek to pray more. Prayer is an ongoing recognition and declaration of our dependence on God. It is the way we spend time with the one we love. Communion is the Church’s highest form of prayer and it makes all other prayer possible. The Daily Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer are a way that we can offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving throughout the week. And the goal is that all moments become holy, that every activity becomes a living and constant prayer without ceasing. Lent is a season of training; it trains us not just to do nice things or to diet a little bit, but to become a people who have been raised into the life of the Trinity, a people who have been bought with a price, a people who have been profoundly changed by the Gospel.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.