The Wandering Way
Psalm 1:1-6 & Luke 4:1-13
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott Blevins
Happy are those
who do not follow the advice of the wicked
or take the path that sinners tread
or sit in the seat of scoffers,
2 but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law they meditate day and night.
3 They are like trees
planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper.
4 The wicked are not so
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous,
6 for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.
______
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’”
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
______
There is a difference between traveling and pilgrimage.
When we travel, we move from one place to another. We book flights, pack efficiently, check into hotels, and follow itineraries. We take photographs of beautiful things. We collect experiences the way some people collect souvenirs. Travel, at its best, is wonderful — but it is essentially about getting somewhere. The destination is the point. The road in between is something to be managed, endured, or at best enjoyed — but ultimately it is simply the distance between here and there.
Pilgrimage is something else entirely.
When you walk a pilgrimage, the road is the point. The destination matters, yes — but what transforms you is not the arriving. It is the walking. It is the blisters and the beauty, the strangers who become companions, the questions that surface when there is nothing to distract you from them, the slow, steady rhythm of one foot in front of the other that somehow teaches you things about your soul that no amount of sitting still ever could. Pilgrimage is travel turned inside out. It is less about where you are going and far more about who you are becoming.
We begin this Lenten series — The Way — as pilgrims, not tourists.
A few years ago, actor Martin Sheen starred in a quiet, beautiful film simply called The Way. His character, Tom, is a practical California ophthalmologist — a man of science, of routine, of certainty. He receives a phone call that shatters his ordered world: his son Daniel has died on the first day of walking the Camino de Santiago, the ancient 500-mile pilgrimage route across northern Spain. Tom flies to France to collect his son's body and belongings, and standing there at the foot of the Pyrenees, he makes a decision that surprises even himself. He will walk the Camino. He will carry Daniel's ashes the entire way. He will finish what his son began.
What starts as grief becomes something he never anticipated — transformation. Over the weeks of walking, Tom is cracked open. He is forced into community with fellow pilgrims he would never have chosen as companions. He is confronted with his own emotional walls, his regrets, his love for a son he never quite understood. He discovers that the Camino does not simply take you from one place to another. It takes you from one version of yourself to another.
Throughout these six weeks of Lent, The Way will be our modern companion on this ancient road. Because the journey Tom walks is not so different from the journey each of us is on — and it is not so different from the journey Jesus himself walked when he stepped into the wilderness after his baptism in the Jordan.
Let us go there now. To that wilderness.
Jesus has just experienced one of the most luminous moments of his life. He has come up out of the water, the heavens have opened, the Spirit has descended like a dove, and a voice — the voice — has spoken over him: "You are my beloved Son. With you I am well pleased." Beloved. Chosen. Seen.
And then immediately — the very next breath — the Spirit leads him into the wilderness.
This is not abandonment. This is not punishment. In the spiritual traditions of Jesus' day, the wilderness pilgrimage was an expected practice among rabbis, prophets, and mystics. It was the place of formation, the crucible in which identity was tested and deepened. The same Spirit who had just affirmed Jesus at the river now leads him to the desert — because affirmation and wilderness are not opposites on The Way. They are companions.
Forty days Jesus wanders. Forty days of hunger, solitude, and the particular clarity that comes when everything comfortable has been stripped away. And in that raw and open space, temptation finds him.
Three times. Three invitations to leave the path.
First, the tempter points to the stones: "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." After forty days without food, this is not a trivial temptation. But underneath the hunger is a deeper question: Can you trust God to sustain you, or must you sustain yourself? This is the temptation of self-sufficiency — the whisper that tells us we are enough on our own, that we need no guide, no community, no God. Jesus answers from the ancient wisdom of scripture: "One does not live by bread alone."
Then comes the vision of all the kingdoms of the world — power, influence, reach — offered freely. All Jesus has to do is bow. This is the temptation of the shortcut: to reach a worthy destination by a compromised road. How many times do we face this in our own lives — the chance to accomplish something good through means that cost us our integrity? Jesus will not take the shortcut. He knows that the road itself matters.
Finally, the tempter takes him to the pinnacle of the temple: "Throw yourself down — surely God will catch you." This is perhaps the most subtle temptation of all: demanding that God prove Godself before we take the next step. Walking only the paths where we feel guaranteed protection. Refusing the vulnerability that genuine faith requires. Jesus refuses this too.
Three temptations. Three invitations to stray. And Jesus meets each one not with supernatural force but with rootedness — with the deep, abiding connection to God's word and God's way that sustains him even in the wilderness.
This is where Psalm 1 speaks to us so powerfully this morning. The Psalmist describes the person of faith as a tree planted by streams of water — deeply rooted, bearing fruit in season, leaves that do not wither. Not a tree that never moves, but a tree that cannot be uprooted. A rooted wanderer. Someone who can venture into the wilderness, face the temptations of the road, and not be swept away — because their roots go deeper than the storm.
"All who wander are not lost." Tolkien's beloved line captures something the Psalmist knew long before Tolkien was born. Purposeful wandering — wandering connected to the source — is not lostness. It is formation.
Along the Camino de Santiago, pilgrims navigate by a simple symbol: the yellow arrow. Painted on roads, stamped on stones, stenciled on walls and trees and the sides of buildings — wherever you are, however disoriented you become, the next yellow arrow is never far. You don't need to see the whole road. You just need to find the next arrow.
That is the invitation of Lent. Not to have it all figured out. Not to arrive already transformed. But to walk — one arrow at a time, one day at a time — trusting the path.
What wilderness are you walking right now? What temptations are calling you off the road — toward self-sufficiency, toward the comfortable shortcut, toward demanding certainty before you take the next step of faith? What burden have you been carrying that the road has not yet had a chance to transform?
Lent is not a season of punishment. It is a season of intentional formation — forty days to do what Jesus did: to walk into the wilderness of our own souls and discover what is truly there. The wandering is not the failure. The wandering is The Way.
At the end of The Way, Tom reaches the great Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. He receives the Compostela — the certificate given to every pilgrim who completes the journey. He stands in that ancient plaza, and then — he keeps walking. The destination was real, but it was not the point. He has been changed not by arriving but by walking. The road made him someone new.
That is my prayer for each of us this Lenten season.
In a moment, I want to invite you into a practice that pilgrims on the Camino have observed for centuries. Along the route, there is a place called the Cruz de Ferro — the Iron Cross — where pilgrims carry a stone from home and leave it at the foot of the cross. The stone represents whatever they have been carrying: a grief, a burden, a regret, a fear. They walk the miles with it in their pack, and they lay it down.
Over these six weeks of Lent, we are going to build a cairn together — a stacked pilgrimage stone marker that will grow week by week as we walk The Way together. I am inviting you to bring a small stone from home next Sunday — something that fits in your palm — representing whatever burden or grief you are carrying into this season. You will place it at the base of our cairn, and together we will build something that tells the story of this congregation's pilgrimage.
I will place mine there first, as an example, because none of us walks this road without something to lay down.
The journey awaits. The arrows will appear. Walk on. Amen