Lent 4: Sacrifice: Pleasure/Desire (feat. Pr. Vieth)

Today, Jesus asks us to sacrifice our crooked, disordered desire so that he might give us a greater, divinized desire. This is terribly difficult because our desires seem to be one of the deepest things about us. Satan has manipulated us into thinking that we are the only ones who can fulfill those desires. Yet, our hearts have become enslaved and have lost their freedom, leaving us looking only for the next pleasure, hit, high, or ecstasy that just might fulfill or satisfy them. We constantly choose darkness over light. In the midst of this, God shows his love for us by sending his Son in the flesh and we have shown our love back by loving the flesh more than the Son. This is horrifying, yet Jesus pursues us all the more. He doesn’t leave us because he knows what’s at stake. He doesn’t want our eternal exile, but our eternal freedom. He keeps pursuing us, even through the excruciating pain of the cross, not only because his desire is for us but because he knows that our hearts will only be satisfied if they desire him. Jesus asks us to sacrifice our desire because we don’t desire enough. He wants to divine our desire so that we can experience the One who can fill our hearts and our desire infinitely: himself.