Show me your ways, O LORD, *
and teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me, *
for you are the God of my salvation;
in you have I trusted all the day long.
It was a cold but clear day last Wednesday and I am glad that so many of you were able to come together to remember this day that begins our journey in Lent. I believe that this time of Lent that begins on Ash Wednesday is one of the most sacred times of our year. It seems to me to be a true grounding where we are invited to consider our beginnings and face our ending—all centered in the love of God. It is a true starting point to reflect on our lives—who we are and were created to be and to journey with Jesus as he teaches, heals, and loves on his way to the cross and ultimately, his rising to new life.
Lent is a time set aside for us to intentionally devote ourselves to making space for love and peace, to begin to clear out the clutter in our lives, to spending time paying attention to the many ways God is made manifest in us and in all of creation. It is a time set aside for us to repent—to turn around and reconnect with the One in whom we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28)
In our reading this morning from Mark’s gospel, we hear in 11 brief verses three important settings in the story of Jesus. First, his baptism, revealing him as the beloved Son of God. In the third setting is the beginning of the rest of the story—Jesus emerging among the people to begin his ministry of proclaiming the good news of God and living out, through words and actions, the saving grace of God for all humankind.
But between these two settings, Mark describes a second setting. We hear that immediately after Jesus is baptized and anointed as God’s beloved, “the spirit drove him into the wilderness”—a place of separation, far away from the hungry and suffering crowds that would fill his days in the months ahead. This was the only place and the only sustained time he would have to wrestle with the forces that work against God’s kingdom.
And this time was not a polite invitation to go—we are told that the spirit “drove” him there. It seems to have been a godly necessity for him to face these tests that would allow him to come out on the other side proclaiming the good news that the kingdom of God was right here.
Mark does not go into the dramatic conversations that Jesus has with Satan in the wilderness. We will have to wait for readings from Matthew and Luke for that.
Instead Mark, in his spare and urgent writing gives us space to imagine our own wilderness experience where Satan tries to convince us of God’s absence in our lives or our unworthiness as humans for redemption. Or the wild beasts that come at us from all angles—both good and bad wild beasts—that catch us unaware and remind us of what we cannot control. And to remember those angels who care for us and companion us as we walk on the mountaintops and through the valleys of our lives. Jesus is directed to this place of wilderness—just as he undergoes baptism to become a part of God’s people, Jesus is driven to the wilderness so he can become one with the living God.
As Karl Rahner says in his book The Great Church Year,
Therefore Jesus goes into the desert, therefore he fasts; therefore he leaves behind everything else that a man needs even for bare existence, so that for this once not just in the depths of his heart but in the whole range of his being he can do and say what is the first and last duty of humankind – to find God, to see God, to belong to God to the exclusion of everything else that makes up human life.[1]
Jesus’ time in the wilderness seems to have been essential to Jesus in reaching out to the living God, in claiming his identity as God’s beloved son and letting his life, his words, his relationships and his love, even to giving himself on the cross, flow from this identity.
Each of us have faced a time in the wilderness— a time when we have been tested, a time when we have faced challenges that have left us unsteady, a time when life has surprised us and left us unsure. Wilderness can be a time when we feel alone and untethered. But wilderness can be a place of clarity where we recognize what is most important in our lives, what truly sustains us and how utterly dependent we are on God’s mercy.
It can bring us face to face with roadblocks that keep us at a distance from God and God’s intent for our well being—roadblocks like anxiety or fear or trying to continue to manage all the details of our life by ourselves, or failing to accept help when angels are required. But it can be a time where God’s presence can be most acute in the form of times of immeasurable peace and friends who gather to care for us.
Wilderness brings us face to face with the satanic voices that sow doubt about God’s faithfulness or our beloved status as God’s children. And wilderness can remind us daily that while we fear the unknown, we are confident that we can entrust our lives to God who even in harsh realities can bring forth new life.
I do not mean to imply—nor do I in any way believe that our time in the wilderness is intended to teach us something or to punish us or to remind us of our dependency. I do not believe that God causes us or ever wants us to suffer. But I do offer that God working in and through us can redeem this time. God only wants good things for God’s children.
As we face wilderness times—times where we wander in the desert unsure of our response or its resolution, I wonder if in light of this story in the gospel of Mark we might ask where as God’s beloved children we are being shaped in this time that will allow us to be a part of Christ’s resurrection, loving and serving God and maybe loving and serving others in light of our experience?
These questions are not meant to redeem struggle –as if we could—but to remind us of God’s presence during those wilderness times that leave us stretched beyond our abilities. Because we can remember that the spirit that descended on Jesus as his baptism and drove him into the wilderness, did not leave him there. Instead that spirit brought him out where he was able to proclaim that the good news can be believed.
Archbishop Oscar Romero says, “When you feel the anguished desire for God to come near because you don’t feel him present, then God is very close to your anguish.”[2]
God will not abandon us during our time in the wilderness. God is, after all, the One who takes that which seems only to cause death and somehow draws out from it resurrection life.
In this time of Lent, we are invited to create a space where we open ourselves to God recognizing our need and restoring us in Jesus who came to show us our true identity and guide us to claim our true peace. How we create this space is up to each of us. It may be by setting aside a few moments every day to sit in silence and open our hearts to God’s love. It may be spending a few minutes every day reading something that opens our mind to a present hope. It may be calling a dear friend and reconnecting with an angel in our life. It may be giving thanks throughout the day. It may be writing one sentence or one paragraph in a journal—just thoughts and hopes, or fears, or responses to our day. It may be making time to take care of ourselves in some way. Anything we do in God’s love can be transforming. God wants us to experience renewal and be confident in the good things that God wishes for us.
The practices we choose are for own learning and healing. In a passage from The Zohar, a mystical commentary on the Torah, the rabbis note that God does not tell Abram where he is going. He is simply sent into the desert—called out. Called out they say to an unknown destination where he will discover himself. “Travel in order to transform yourself, create yourself anew.” At its simplest, lekh lekha that translates: “Travel—to yourself.”[3]
When Jesus emerges from the wilderness, Mark reports that his very first message is “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (1:15) He does not say the time will be fulfilled or the kingdom of God will come near as in sometime next year or even only in the afterlife. He says that the kingdom of God is already here in this life—right now.
And we are to “repent” The Hebrew word for repentance means “to turn” or “return” and the Greek word for repentance means to “go beyond the mind that we have.” So when we are called to repent we are to turn around, to re-orient ourselves, to consider beyond what we currently know—to face God’s kingdom. It does not mean to beat our breasts or even to mourn “our manifold sins and weaknesses.” The late Marcus Borg said in his book Speaking Christian, Forgiveness is not dependent upon repentance. We are forgiven already, loved and accepted by God. We don’t need to do anything to warrant God’s love. But repentance – turning and returning to God, going beyond the mind that we have – is the path that leads to transformation.[4] The kingdom of God is here now. It is never to late to reach out for God.
I invite you to the observance of a Holy Lent. On Ash Wednesday when the sign of the cross is made on our foreheads with ashes and today when we sing the Great Litany, we are reminded of our essence– that we are God’s beloved children. Every Lent we are reminded that we are still in covenant with a compassionate and merciful God. God is with us in the wilderness, giving us what we need and sending his angels to care for us. Time has passed with moments on the mountaintop and moments in the wilderness, and we are still here and God is still with us. As we walk this time in Lent, may we remember to create a space in our lives so that we may hear the promise of God’s presence and respond in turning our lives toward the One who has come near.
[1] Karl Rahner. The Great Church Year. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1993.
[2] Oscar A. Romero. The violence of love. Chicago: Province of the Society of Jesus, 1988.
[3] Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious (Schocken Books: New York) Kindle edition.
[4] Marcus Borg. Speaking Christian. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011, 159.