2/22/2026_Lent 1_Hiddenness to Healing
If I know anything about sin, and I've been a very good sinner in my life, the Psalmist captures it so beautifully—
“While I kept silence, my body wasted away…
my strength was dried up.”
Not because God was punishing him.
Not because lightning fell from the sky.
But because he was carrying something alone.
And in the psalm, that weight is not abstract—it’s physical.
“My bones wasted away,” bones—עֲצָמַי (EH-tsem)-the Hebrews knew the bones to be the innermost, enduring part of the body—literal anatomy and the immaterial core of a person. For the psalmist this is their very center, their strength, stability.
“Your hand was heavy upon me”—not striking, but pressing.
This is what unspoken truth does—it settles into the body.
Silence was slowly killing them.
I don’t think I am alone in knowing something about that kind of silence.
The silence of pretending we’re fine.
The silence of “maybe it’s not that bad.”
The silence of “I’ll deal with it later.”
The silence of shame that says, maybe if I just avoid it, it will go away.
The silence of shame that says, whatever you do, don’t let anyone see this.
At least the truth in my life is:
What I hide doesn’t disappear.
It expands.
It hardens.
It weighs down.
It drains the life out of me.
Yet, the Psalmist is really brave—they approach God in honesty:
“Then I acknowledged my sin to you…
and you forgave.”
And that word “acknowledged”—in Hebrew יָדָה (yadah)—means to make known, to stop covering, to open your hands, to release what you’ve been gripping in secret.
Healing begins—not with perfection—but with honesty.
And then something extraordinary happens.
The psalmist turns.
They turn from a place of hiding from God—to God:
“You are my hiding place.”
The place they were running from—becomes the very place they can finally rest in.
The problem was never being seen.
The problem was trying to be unseen.
Our Gospel also happens in a silence.
Jesus is led into the wilderness.
He is alone.
Hungry.
Vulnerable.
Forty days. No safety net. No crowd. No affirmation.
And that number matters.
Because this is not the first wilderness in Scripture.
Israel wandered in the wilderness for forty years—
and in that place, they forgot who they were.
They grumbled.
They grasped.
They fumbled.
They tested God.
Jesus walks into that same story.
Forty days—echoing those forty years.
And where Israel forgot, Jesus remembers.
Where Israel grasped, Jesus trusts.
And that is when temptation comes.
Temptation doesn’t begin with evil acts.
It begins with statements that provoke doubt.
“If you are the Son of God…”
“If you really matter…”
“If you really belong…”
That is how temptation works.
It tries to isolate us from who we are.
From whose we are.
From God’s voice that just said at Jesus’ baptism,
“This is my beloved.”
And instead it whispers:
“You’re on your own now.”
Both the Psalmist and Jesus name the danger of isolation.
The psalmist hides.
Jesus is isolated.
One withers in silence.
The other stands in truth.
And the difference is not strength of character.
The difference is relationship—trust rooted in relationship.
Jesus refuses to hide.
He refuses to perform.
He refuses to prove himself.
Instead, he keeps turning back to God’s word.
He stays grounded in the voice that called him beloved.
“I am not alone.”
“I am held.”
“I am beloved.”
I wonder what would happen
if we began facing the places that need healing
from that same place of known-ness.
This is scary.
I am feeling shame.
And—
I am not alone.
I am held.
I am beloved.
The Psalmist tells us the truth of what comes from our bravery:
When I stopped hiding,
God did not turn away.
God became my hiding place.
Not a place to disappear—
but a place to be safe.
That is the good news.
God is not waiting for us to clean ourselves up.
God is just waiting for us to come out of hiding.
This is the best news of Lent—and honestly, I think this is our call as the church. Our call to practice, to invite others into.
Because Jesus enters the wilderness
so that our wilderness does not have the last word.
Jesus faces temptation
so that we are not abandoned in ours.
Jesus stands firm in isolation
so that we might learn how to reach for connection.
Jesus does not conquer temptation
by pretending it isn’t hard.
Jesus remains rooted in relationship—with God.
And that is the heart of spiritual life.
Not heroic willpower.
Not moral perfection.
Relationship.
And that has consequences for the church.
Believe it or not, church is not a gathering of people who have it together.
It is a gathering of people who are learning to be brave, learning to tell the truth.
And church is called to be a soft place where people do not get lost in silence, suffer unseen, or are left alone. Where people can be met gently when they say:
“I am struggling.”
“I am tired.”
“I am afraid.”
“I messed up.”
And, I can tell you, it is really easy to get lost in silence in the church. From personal experience, during internal church conflict or when personally struggling—churches have not always been the best example of soft places nor a good example of practicing bravery.
It can be a terrifying place—and yet that is my work—it’s our work.
I know we can do better. I know we can be a soft place—a place where people can simply receive the response:
“You are not alone.”
“You are still beloved.”
“You still belong.”
Beloveds, it always begins with ourselves.
Lent is for you and for me to meet ourselves gently and ask:
What are you carrying quietly?
What story are you afraid to tell?
What part of your life is living in the shadows?
Where have you been strong for so long that you’re exhausted?
Lent is for us as a church body—who preach forgiveness and grace—to get brave and meet our own community gently, and ask:
What are we carrying quietly?
What stories are we afraid to tell?
What part of our life is being lived in the shadows?
Where have we been strong for so long that we’re exhausted?
You, I, we don’t have to carry that burden by ourselves anymore.
We can let God meet us where we really are.
When we do—when we speak, when we trust, when we come out of hiding—
It ends not with shame, but with joy:
“Be glad… and rejoice,” the psalmist tells us.
Not because life is perfect.
But because we are free.
Free from pretending.
Free from isolation.
Free from silence.
Free to live as forgiven people.
Beloveds, may we find this freedom and live into it—
released from pretending,
released from silence,
released into the joy of being fully known and still loved.
Amen.
