First Sunday in Lent
And so it begins …
Jesus
was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He
fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter
came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to
become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written,
Then the devil
took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying
to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is
written,
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the
devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the
world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if
you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan!
for it is written,
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
Matthew 4:1-11
Christ in the Wilderness Surrounded by Angels
LAFOSSE, Carles de
1690
Hermitage,
St. Petersburg
Charles de La Fosse (1636-1716, Paris), also spelled
Delafosse, was a French painter. Known for his decorative historical and
allegorical murals, his work continued a variant of the stately French Baroque
manner of the 17th century, while to developing a lighter, more brightly
colored style that presaged the Rococo painting of the 18th century.
LaFosse was impressed with the works of the 16th-century Italians
Francesco Primaticcio, Titian, and Paolo Veronese, which he studied during his
five year stay in Rome and Venice. His greatest work was the decoration
of the cupola of the Church of Les Invalides in Paris, while more significant
to later critics are his smaller works remarkable for their use of light and
their fresh color sense. He became a member of the Royal Academy in 1673
and was named chancellor in 1715.
And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight
inside the bud
was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~
Anais Nin
My destination is no longer a place,
rather a new way of seeing.
~
Marcel Proust
Vicki
Hall and her doggies, Woofie and JAK,
with
the shawl she was given by the Shawl Ministry from Church of the Hills.
Here
is the wonderful knitter!
Kathy
Frankish is in my exercise class and is a member of the Shawl Ministry
(even
though she doesn’t attend our church)!
At
last!!! Three trees were removed from my neighbor’s patio.
The
two dead aspens on the left and the pine tree next to it.
I
took these pictures from my bedroom window.
Jeanne
Gibbard and I enjoyed seeing Bus Stop at the Arvada Center.
At
Rotary, we were entertained by a number from Billy Elliot.
Tom
Scripps, Elaine Sohrweid, members of the cast.
Another
cast member with Mark Vickstrom, both members of the cast.
Elaine
Sohrweid plays Grandma.
Saturday
evening we saw the production at Center Stage!
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
to do the right deed for the wrong reason.
~
T.S. Eliot
March 5, 2017 First Sunday in Lent
The three temptations in the desert were precisely to choose the “upward way.”
· Be relevant: do something that the world can praise you for
like making bread out of the stones.
· Be spectacular: jump from the tower so that everybody can
see you and you can be on television because you’re so influential, so
important.
· Be powerful: kneel before me and I will give you dominion
over all the lands.
But Jesus said, “No,” because he
knew that God’s way is not to be relevant, to be spectacular, or to be
powerful.
Agnus Day, by
James Wetzstein
Agnus Day appears with the permission
of www.agnusday.org
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11