I was taken with Mark’s brevity in relating Jesus’ time in the desert/wilderness – but was also interested to note that Mark says “the Spirit drove him into the wilderness.” When does the Spirit drive US into the wilderness?
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Mark 1:9-15
9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved;[a] with you I am well pleased.”
12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news[b] of God,[c] 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;[d] repent, and believe in the good news.”[e]
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Dear people of God, grace to you and peace this day, through God who has come near, through Christ who brings good news. Amen.
If some of this gospel sounds familiar, no worries – we’ve heard both the first and last parts of it in the last several weeks.
But we didn’t hear the middle part, which is the part we generally associate with the First Sunday of Lent: Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.
As is typical in Mark’s gospel, the story sticks to the essentials. No long story about any specific temptations; instead, Mark uses the story to make the connections between Old Testament markers and Jesus coming as sign of the new covenant: the forty days echoes the Israelites’ forty years in the Sinai, the wild beasts reminds us of Adam naming the animals (Jesus is frequently seen as the new Adam), and the angels in attendance are like those who attended Elijah in his exile.
How Jesus was tempted is not the point for Mark. Rather, the gospel writer is laying out that in these forty days, Jesus fufills the time.
It is the Spirit, after all, who drives him into the wilderness. Not the devil. And he doesn’t set out on some kind of self-improvement pilgrimage.
The Spirit DRIVES him into the wilderness.
Judging from my son’s and many others’ descriptions of boot camp, this wilderness time may be along the same lines for Jesus.
And perhaps that gives us a hint as to why this even happens. Jesus is the Son of God, right? So why this wilderness experience, this testing? This thing that sounds a lot like an initiation rite?
Boot camp gives a new recruit a hardline understanding of what’s to come. Likewise, Jesus is driven into a place with wild beasts, where Satan was unleashed to do Satan’s worst. For Jesus, what’s to come is confronting the powers of this world with the proclamation that the kingdom of God is at hand. And while that might sound relatively tame, it is one of the most radical statements Jesus could make. Wild beasts might eventually be preferable to the worst that people can unleash.
In this story, Mark’s gospel makes clear the line from naming, to testing, to fully empowered – in six short verses. Those verses call to mind the Old Testament examples to also make it clear that Jesus is come to recast those stories.
Jesus is retracing Israel’s steps, rewriting her story, and recasting the destiny of all of God’s people. Jesus’ first declaration of the gospel, after the temptation in the wilderness, says as much: he announces that the time has been made full, and God’s rule has come near. All of the old obligations to the priests, to the temple, to Herod, and to Rome have been cancelled, not only for Jesus, but for all those who repent and follow him into God’s rule.
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As baptized and beloved children of God, we are set on the same course.
In our baptism, we are named and called beloved.
And when we are driven into the wilderness usually varies from person to person.
But our collective forty days in the wilderness has been the last twelve months: together, but not together.
The irony of the saying “we’re all in this together” is that while we are sharing a common experience, we aren’t able to actually be together.
We’ve spent the last 12 months trying to discern what, if anything, is safe. Mask outside, or not? Groups of 10 or less inside ok, or not? For churches, guidelines have sounded like nothing so much as what we used to call “new math” problems: if the church wants to have in-person worship but is only in Phase 2, how many people are allowed to speak with masks off at one time and do they count towards the 25% of capacity?
And so on. Make no mistake, I am deeply grateful both for the state’s vigilance and for your council’s decision that gathering for worship in person was not safe for the past year.
But I’m starting to feel the strain of being in the wilderness for so long.
We’ve come up against too many wild beasts, bearing names like Greed and Selfishness. Names like Fear and Xenophobia.
The wilderness of no-win situations. The wilderness of divisive rhetoric.
There’s been lots and lots of wild beasts, and angels have been few and far between. I’m sure that’s why we find ourselves deeply moved by stories of those we’d call angels. We are hungry for angels right now.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that they DO show up. Generally in unexpected places.
I’m thinking of the dozens of stories I’ve heard or read about kind folks shoveling their neighbors’ driveways and front walkways.
The young man who stepped up to help re-surface an elderly woman’s ramp so she could safely use it, including getting contributions for materials.
And so on. And we cling to these stories, these reminders that there IS good in this world, and no amount of ugliness can keep it down.
And I wonder if in that simple reality – that no amount of evil in this world can ultimately triumph over good – we find the heart of the good news.
The good news that reminds us that following Jesus was never guaranteed to be easy, but that in following Jesus we realize the full breadth of the grace and goodness of God, that overcomes the evil in this world.
That is the good news we are called to proclaim. The good news that Jesus proclaimed in Galilee, a couple of thousand years ago, as he emerged from the wilderness.
The time is fulfilled. The peaceable realm, the kin-dom of God is at hand.
I wonder if maybe we’re still in the wilderness. That the idea of proclaiming this good news is just too much right now, with the amount of loss we’ve collectively borne as a congregation, a country, and a world.
And then I think about the vaccinations happening, and the hope that brings.
We may still be in the wilderness, but I pray that we are nearing the end of that part of this particular journey. That we will find ourselves in a different place soon.
I wonder if while we are still in the wilderness, we might think about what God might be doing in this place, in this situation.
As Dr. King said, God will make a way out of no way.
God will use the strangest things for good.
We’ve seen that with adapting to being able to livestream our worship services. This gives us potential and opportunities that weren’t even conceivable before.
And so I want to encourage you to ask yourself this week: in this time of COVID, where have you seen God using this time for good?
When we find and acknowledge God’s action in the world, we arrive at the place where we can proclaim:
Repent – meaning, turn and go a new way – and believe in this good news:
That God is using this time for good. Because God makes a way out of no way. Because God loves God’s people.
Amen.
Light from the Gorge 