In 2022, three years after becoming the youngest figure skating champion in the United States, Alysa Liu retired at the age of 16. She was exhausted, burned out, and couldn’t wait to get away from her sport. She had started her journey as a figure skater at the age of five, and when she showed promise of being able to compete on the world stage, her life became a regimented series of training requirements. She would be dropped off at the rink before the sun came up, and she would be picked up to go home at 11 p.m. She wasn’t allowed to eat the same food as the rest of her family because it wasn’t deemed “healthy” enough. As she advanced in competition, she didn’t get to spend time with her friends. When she trained for the Olympics, she lived at the Olympic training facility and had very few experiences that felt like something she chose to participate in. And so, at the age of 16, she said she was done. She walked away from what she had invested every waking moment of her life in for eleven years, with no idea what she would do instead.

Alysa spent time with her friends, she traveled, she tried new things. She let herself enjoy the foods she wanted to eat, and she enrolled in college to study psychology. After eleven years of having every single day pre-planned for her, Alysa wasn’t even sure she knew what she liked anymore. So, she had new experiences and paid attention to what brought her joy. In 2024, she took a ski trip to Lake Tahoe, and while she was skiing, she experienced a rush of joy and adrenaline she hadn’t felt in a long time. She remembered the moments on the ice where she felt joyful, free, and had a purpose, and it made her want to go back to skating–this time, on her own terms. 

She set hard and fast rules, and not everyone was on board right away. She told her dad she didn’t want him involved with her coaching. She asked a former coach if he would coach her again, and he told her it was unheard of for someone to come back from retirement and stand any kind of chance of competing well. Eventually, she convinced him to work with her, but she had some rules she wouldn’t budge on. An article on ESPN about Liu explained her rules this way: “Liu, still just 18, continued to make it known that she would be the final decision-maker when it came to her career. If she needed to take a day off, she would. She could eat what she wanted when she wanted. She would have a say in her choreography, music and costumes. She was in charge… [Liu said] ‘I’m so intentional now…I’m so grounded. Everything I do has a reason for why I do it.’” [1]

Her sense of purpose and her love for what she was doing was evident when she took the ice. As I watched her routine, it seemed as though she forgot she had an audience. She wasn’t nervous. Her smile couldn’t be contained. And she skated a nearly flawless routine, to win the gold medal–the USA’s first women’s Olympic gold in 24 years. As I’ve talked to people about Alysa Liu’s routine, the word I’ve heard the most often from people is the word “joy,” and close behind that is the word “calm.” I agree, and the reason she was calm and joyful was clear: she knew it was her purpose to be there, and she chose to participate in it with her whole self. 

Today, on this first Sunday of Lent, it might seem strange to talk about joy. Typically, when we talk about Lent, we talk about preparation, fasting, discipline, and reflection–all of which are good and important parts of the Lenten journey. But the very beginning of the journey is the purpose for the journey. We are called into the wilderness, into the journey of Lent, for the purpose of growing in our relationship with God. We are called into this journey to dust off any lines of connection to God we’ve forgotten about or neglected, and to remember our first love–to remember what it looks like to choose our relationship with God every day. I’m convinced that when we do this, we will discover joy and peace. We won’t just be going through the motions anymore; we will be journeying with Jesus with a purpose we’ve embraced with all of who we are.

We begin the journey with Genesis, where the first human learns his purpose: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). The two words describing this purpose, translated as “till” and “keep,” are important. The word translated as “till” is a word that can mean “to work” but also can mean “to serve.” The word translated as “keep” means “to guard or protect.” It’s the same word that Cain uses after killing his brother Abel: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “Was I supposed to protect him?” When God created Adam and placed him into the Garden, God didn’t just leave Adam there to figure it out; God gave Adam a purpose, a calling. He was to work the land as a good steward, as a person called to serve it and protect it. At first, Adam does this, but then the task becomes more complicated.

In Genesis 3, the serpent inserts doubt when it comes to the people’s purpose. Prior to this, when God gave the people their purpose, they trusted God and they followed. The serpent, being the most “crafty” of all the wild animals, asks, “Does God really know what’s best? Can you trust who God made you to be?” Both people chose to listen to the nagging voice of doubt, “Is God really good? Can God be trusted?” and that decision ushered shame into the world. That decision brought doubt into the world–doubt about who God is, and doubt about who God created us to be–and with that doubt, shame about ourselves and about the ways we never quite measure up to the expectations we have for ourselves, or that others have for us.

The beginning of the Lenten journey is actually pretty similar to Alysa Liu deciding to walk away from skating and rediscover herself and what she was passionate about. We are invited on this forty day journey to step away from the usual routine, to change things up by giving something up or adding in a spiritual practice, and asking ourselves what life will look like on the other side of the journey. Who did God create us to be? What purpose do I have? Where do I experience the joy of the Lord? Then, when we emerge from the wilderness, we will be a changed people who have reconnected with God and who know ourselves a little bit better than we did before the journey began. 

In our Matthew reading for this morning, Jesus has learned about the arrest of John the Baptist. John had been preaching a message of repentance in the Judean wilderness, and Jesus had gone to be baptized by John. After John’s arrest, Jesus goes to Galilee, where he begins his ministry of healing and preaching about the reign of God. I always thought the reason Jesus went to Galilee was because it was his home turf, and I do think that’s part of the reason. But, there’s more to it than that. You see, Galilee was a region that used to be home to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali. In the 8th century, Zebulun and Naphtali, along with the rest of the northern kingdom of Israel fought against the growing Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians, known for their might and brutality, conquered the northern kingdom in 723 BCE. Isaiah was a prophet during this time, and he wrote the famous words which Matthew quoted in our reading: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned” (Matthew 4:15-16). Cynthia M. Campbell and Christine Coy Fohr, in their book Meeting Jesus on the Road, write this about this region later known as Galilee: “From the perspective of the religious and political leaders in Jerusalem, this region was the hinterland and more than a little suspect in terms of orthodox religious identity. But this is where Jesus comes from. These are his people. And this is the place where he engages in ministry: in the land once devastated, among people whose ancestral identity was largely lost” (p. 14). [2]

Jesus’s first ministry was to people who were overlooked and dismissed by the rest of the world, people who had suffered and lost their identity, people who came from a place that made other people wonder, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” His ministry was to remind them of God’s promises to work with them and through them, and to bring healing and wholeness to those who needed it. He called them out of their self-doubt–out of their brokenness–and invited them to remember their love for God and God’s love for them. 

As we embark upon the journey of Lent, we have the opportunity to meet Jesus there. We are called to step back from what we’ve allowed to become routine in our lives and ask ourselves what is life-giving and what is just go-through-the-motions-to-meet-expectations behavior. We are invited to push away expectations that aren’t from God and that are holding us back, and to reclaim the purpose and joy of the life God has for us. Steve Magness, performance coach for world class athletes and author of several books, wrote this about Alysa Liu’s comeback to figure skating: “Alysa Liu retired at 16 because skating wasn’t hers anymore. She won Olympic gold at 20 because it finally was.”[3] May we be inspired to release what isn’t ours so that we can embrace with our whole selves the joy of living as people with a purpose. We may not win the gold, but we will be experiencing a joy that is golden. Amen.

Footnotes:
[1] ESPN article about Alysa Liu’s comeback: https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/47941438/2026-winter-olympics-alysa-liu-women-figure-skating

[2] Cynthia M. Campbell and Christine Coy Fohr, Meeting Jesus on the Road, p. 14

[3] Steve Magness’s Substack about Alysa Liu https://stevemagness.substack.com/p/from-have-to-to-want-to-how-alysa