Christ in the Wilderness: Ivan Kramskoy (1837–1887), 1872; Tretyakov Gallery, MoscowWith Ash Wednesday behind us, we are drawn into Lent not only by words but also by action. We came forward. We received. We were marked. The ashes weren’t abstract; they touched our skin.

Reflecting on this and my recent Diaconate study weekend, my thoughts have turned to how this simple gesture gently gathers both truth and promise: dust and grace, frailty and calling.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus goes into the wilderness. He goes there not by accident, but led by the Spirit. Led into a place of hunger, silence, and testing. Lent begins not with clarity, but with wilderness. Not with strength, but with vulnerability.

And that matters. Because the temptations Jesus faces are not dramatic or distant. They are human. Immediate. Familiar. The temptation to turn stones into bread, to satisfy need quickly, on our own terms. The temptation to grasp power and certainty. The temptation to force God to prove Himself.

They are the same movements we know in our own hearts: the pull toward control, toward appearance, toward security without trust. On Ash Wednesday, we named our mortality. Today, we see what it means to live faithfully within it. Jesus does not escape the wilderness. He remains. He hungers. He trusts. He answers each temptation not with spectacle, but with the steady truth of God’s word: “Man shall not live by bread alone.” Lent is not about proving our strength. It is about learning where our life truly comes from.

The ashes marked us with humility. The wilderness teaches us trust. And perhaps this is the deeper connection: Ash Wednesday told us who we are: dust, dependent, in need of grace. The First Sunday in Lent shows us how to live as those kinds of people: not grasping, not performing, but rooted in God.

Jesus walks the path we are only beginning. He enters the desert we often avoid. And because he does, the wilderness is no longer only a place of testing. It becomes a place of meeting, a place where false hungers are named, and true hunger for God can grow.

So Lent stretches before us now, not as a burden, but as a journey already walked by Christ. We began it marked with ashes. We continue following him ‘step by step’ through the wilderness toward the light.

Neil is a candidate for ordination to the diaconate. This article first appeared in the pew sheet for the First Sunday in Lent.