Shrove Tuesday

It occurs to me that Shrove Tuesday is the best day for procrastination: I will be self-disciplined, I will undertake all manner of improvements both spiritual and physical, I will mark each day with acts of self-denial, but best of all I will not start these things until tomorrow. It's not clear from the Gospels how long it was between Jesus' baptism and his forty days in the desert: Mark (of course) says that it was "at once", Matthew has "then", while Luke chooses to put his genealogy in at this point and has Jesus returning from the Jordan and then being led into the desert. It is quite nice to imagine Jesus saying to himself "I've got forty days of fasting and temptation coming up - I think I'll have a nice bath."

Slightly more seriously, reading these accounts reminds me that the forty days comes immediately after the affirmation of Jesus as loved by God. We can't know how different Jesus' relationship with his Father was when he was on earth from when he was/is the second person of the trinity; maybe he was in exactly the same relationship of eternal unequivocal love throughout all of his life and the affirmation was for the benefit of those listening, but maybe, being human, it was important to hear that he was loved, even if he knew it anyway. However, one important point that I need to bear in mind is that acts of self-discipline come out of the security of being loved, not the other way round. I don't get my relationship right with God (and therefore my relationships with myself and with others) through self-discipline: I undertake self-discipline becasue the desire to do so arises from the sure and secure knowledge that I am loved. There is a world of difference between buying chocolates and flowers for someone to make them love you and buying chocolates and flowers for someone because you love them.