God calls us to be disciples of Jesus, building community through
service and fellowship and sharing the love of Christ with all.
“The United Methodist Church of Westford is an open and welcoming community of Christian
Faith. Without any exceptions, we welcome anyone who seeks to love and to serve God.” Learn More
Ash Wednesday Service will be held tonight at 7:00 pm. Special Music by the Adult Choir.
Pre-recording of Service
On the first Sunday in Lent, we follow Jesus into the wilderness—a place of hunger, testing, and spiritual clarity. After forty days of fasting, when his body is weak and his hunger is real, the tempter comes. And the temptations go straight to the heart of what it means to be human: the longing for provision, for security, and for influence: “Turn these stones into bread”; “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down”; “All these kingdoms I will give you.”
Notice—each offer sounds almost reasonable. Bread is good. Safety is good. Influence can even be used for good. But each comes in a distorted form: bread without trust, protection without obedience, power without worship. The tempter invites Jesus to define himself apart from the Father—to grasp rather than receive, to control rather than trust. But Jesus chooses differently. He chooses true bread—not simply food for the body, but a life anchored in every word that comes from God. He chooses true worship—refusing shortcuts to glory and refusing to bow to what glitters but does not give life. He chooses true power—the quiet, steady power of faithful obedience rather than domination.
At the doorway of Lent, God calls us to examine our own wilderness spaces. Where are we tempted to seek quick fixes instead of deep trust? Where do we confuse visibility with faithfulness, control with strength? In a culture hungry for more—more comfort, more certainty, more control—Jesus shows us another way.
Lent is not about proving our strength. It is about learning what truly sustains us. In Christ, we discover that true life does not come from grasping but from trusting; not from spectacle but from surrender; not from ruling over but from worshiping God alone. And in that trust, we find a deeper nourishment—true bread, true worship, true power.