Lent 1, March 5, 2006

Over and over this week, I’ve heard people saying, “Thank goodness it’s finally March!”  March seems to be the time we turn the corner towards spring.  Even though we’re still getting snow, and even though we know that spring will likely arrive in name only, we feel expectant.  The days are longer and the sun is brighter.  In my yard the birds are singing and a few crocuses are starting to send shoots up through the snow—all signs of a new season approaching.

In the cycle of the church year, too, it’s time for a new season—the season of Lent.  Unlike spring, Lent has a very predictable beginning and end—it began on Ash Wednesday and continues for 40 days, ending on the day before Easter.  Why for forty days?  Forty is a significant number in Jewish and Christian scriptures.  In Genesis the flood that destroyed the earth occurred when it rained for 40 days and 40 nights; Moses spent 40 days  on Mt. Sinai, fasting, when he received the ten commandments; the Ninevites were  given 40 days to repent in the book of Jonah; Elijah  spent 40 days in the desert before meeting God at Mt. Horeb,  and as we heard in today’s gospel, Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and being tempted before he began his ministry. In the early church Lent was a period of preparation for those who were to be baptized at the Great Vigil of Easter, and those forty days were ones of fasting and  intense study.

As you likely have noticed, we do a number of things in our worship and in our church life together to observe the season of Lent. We use purple vestments—purple as the color of mourning and penitence as we anticipate the crucifixion, and purple as the color of royalty as we prepare for the resurrection and reign of the Christ. Because we view Lent as a somewhat austere time, we simplify things at the altar as well, removing all silver and brass and extra candles. Because Lent is a time set aside as a special time for penitence, we add prayers to our liturgy—the Great Litany, the Penitential Order—to reflect that.

Many of us also take on some sort of discipline in Lent—we give up something—ice cream, chocolate, alcohol, TV—or we take on something extra—extra time for prayer, some sort of special reading, extra exercise, extra time on church activities.  We do these things not to deprive ourselves or to punish ourselves but rather to help ourselves focus—focus on God, focus on Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, focus on his crucifixion and resurrection and what they mean for us.

The readings that we hear over the next six weeks will also help us focus on what is to come.  The gospel for the first Sunday in Lent every year tells the story of Jesus’ time in the wilderness following his baptism by John the Baptist. This year we hear Mark’s version of the story.  As is his style, Mark wastes no words in telling this story—we get just the bare details: 

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.

Beyond the exclusion of details there is one other significant way that Mark’s gospel differs from Matthew’s and Luke’s in the telling of this story, and that is in the verb that is used to get Jesus into the wilderness.  In both Matthew and Luke, Jesus is LED into the desert, but in Mark, the Spirit DRIVES him into the desert.  There’s quite a difference in connotation, don’t you think?

In the Greek, the verb is the same verb that is used when Jesus casts out demons—ekballo.  Just as Jesus casts out demons from those who come to him , so does the Spirit cast Jesus out into the wilderness, where we are told, he was tempted by Satan, and where he was with the wild beasts.

What was this wilderness?  When we hear the word, we often think of the desert, but wilderness is more than just desert. In the first century Mediterranean world, virtually everyone lived within the confines of towns, more often than not, towns with walls.   To be in the wilderness meant being beyond the safety that a town would offer.  It also meant being beyond the social system and social conventions of the town.  It really meant being in “the wild”.

For the Jewish people, of course, the notion of being in the wilderness had rich historical connotations as well.  When the Israelites were liberated from  Egypt they traveled for long, long periods of time in the wilderness—a time  that  must have been both freeing and frightening, both joyous and burdensome.  Throughout Hebrew scripture we find wilderness being associated with times of hardship and times of transition.

When Jesus was driven into the wilderness it was a time of transition for him as well—a transition that marked the beginning of his ministry, a transition that meant the end of his time living as a “private citizen” as it were.  Mark tells us that as Jesus came out from Nazareth to be baptized by John, and as he emerged from the waters of his baptism he encountered the Holy Spirit—first descending on him as a dove, and then IMMEDIATELY driving him out.  Even for Jesus, even for Jesus, it seems that an encounter with the Spirit can be risky, can be life-altering. For Jesus it meant not only giving up life as he had known it to take on his ministry, it meant also being tested, being tried—perhaps for Jesus it was time of coming face to face with what his ministry would ultimately mean for him. Jesus’ encounter with the Spirit was not one of gentleness but one of force.

And I think that is often true for us as well.  We like to think that when we encounter God, when we experience the Holy Spirit, our lives will change for the better, that all will be well, and certainly that is true on many levels.  But I want to suggest that encounters with God can be times of transition for us, that encounters with God can drive us into the wilderness as well.  Few of us will be literally driven into the wild to vie with the beasts, but when we respond to God’s presence in our lives we may find ourselves in a world where all the familiar landmarks are changed, where our predictable patterns of living are altered.  We may find ourselves wandering, and we may find ourselves tempted—tempted to just go on with life as usual rather than face the changes that a new life in Christ may entail.  We may feel as if we are being tested to see if we are really committed to that new life in Jesus Christ.

For some of us, being driven into the wilderness may be a major cataclysmic event. But for many of us, perhaps for most of us, we may find ourselves making short periodic trips into the wilderness instead. As we encounter God in our lives over and over, we may find ourselves thrust into the wilderness unawares, or we may journey there knowingly as we seek to reach a new level of commitment to God.

And what are we to do we do in the wilderness?  How do we survive?  Just as God provided manna in the wilderness for the Israelites, just as angels were sent to minister to Jesus, so too will God provide for us and protect us even when we feel lost and alone.  What gives us sustenance for the journey, what enables us to face the wilderness and to emerge on the other side is the gospel—the good news that calls us to turn anew to God, and that promises us a light to guide us as we do so.  What is required of us is an openness to God’s presence and a willingness to follow that light so that we might emerge as new persons, fully transformed and ready to live out our life in  Christ .

Being cast into the wilderness can be trying; it can be frightening, but it can also enrich us and deepen our connection to God. During Lent I offer you a challenge and a hope.  I challenge you, I challenge all of us to join Jesus in the wilderness, and to reflect not only on Jesus’ time there, but also on our own forays. Where is the wilderness for us?  What are the temptations we face there? Moreover, what does it mean for us to emerge from the wilderness as part of Christ’s new creation?  To what are we being called?

My hope for all of us is that this journey through the wilderness in Lent will prepare us to emerge prayerfully and joyfully into the glory that is Easter, ready to celebrate all that Easter means.  Until then I wish you strength for the journey and a Holy Lent.

AMEN