Some good Lenten thoughts from this brief e-book by my current temp-boss:

We are capable of ruining almost anything. Give us the Law, and we will make it oppressive. Give us a prophet and we will applaud until it looks like he might just be successful, and then we will kill him. Give us a temple and we will burn it to the ground. Tell us how to love and we will use the words as one more way to lie about our motives, and say we love when we mean that we want sex, feel guilty, or have something else up our sleeves.
We have, it seems, an inordinate desire for the things that are guaranteed to turn ourselves and everyone around us into ashes, and no guide, no program, no law or prophet, will ultimately deter us.

From God's point of view, there is only one solution: invasion. God puts the fire of his glory to one side -- and as sin crept in, so God creeps in: the natural way. Human birth. The Word of God, the power of God, made flesh, inhabiting the man Jesus, knowing us literally inside out, feeling all that we feel, walking and talking among us, healing and teaching and loving, seeking a way by God's deliberate plan to follow our deceit to its roots. Loving us until we killed him.

But that was not the end of the invasion. In the Cross God tore open the heart of death and nailed our sin to the tree, taking it with him, forever, into the heart of his love. And rising from the dead, the Lord took our nature with him, resplendent as the glory on Sinai: not just a resuscitated corpse, but the very image of the Glory of God now, no longer to kill us with his beauty but to show us how beautiful we will look if we put our faith in his grace and love.

But the invasion had just begun. The Lord also gave the Holy Spirit into our hearts, a Spirit of fire to burn away everything that would turn us to ashes. Lent is a season of learning to live in that fire.