Mark 1:9-15
February
21, 2021
When we were in the planning stages
of our seminary trip to the Middle East, I thought that the desert areas would
look like what I assumed all deserts would look like: rolling dunes of sand,
broken only by the occasional caravan of camels or an oasis or two. Certainly,
there are areas of the Near and Middle East that have desert just like that.
But the desert I saw in Jordan and Syria looked very different. It was January,
so it was brown and dusty. There was sparse vegetation, scrub brush, straggly
bushes. Jordan, as I recall, was mountainous. We stood on Mount Nebo, where
Moses stood. And driving through some of those winding mountain roads had its
moments of terror. I learned not to look out the bus window and watch how close
we came to the edge of the cliff. We never saw wild animals, but again it was
January. They may have been hibernating, or perhaps they have been pushed to
other more hospitable habitats.
I
remember marveling that I was traveling through the wilderness, the same
wilderness where Moses and the Israelites wandered. The same wilderness where
Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights being tempted by Satan. The same wilderness
where Jesus survived in the presence of animals and angels.
Scripture
gives us some clues about the animals that Jesus might have encountered. Lions,
bears, wolves, foxes, snakes. I would not want to encounter any of these close
up and personal on a day when I had enough to eat and drink, much less when I
was on a 40 day fast.
In
true Markan fashion, we only know the bare minimum about Jesus’ experience in
the wilderness. Luke and Matthew filled in the picture of these 40 days and 40
nights. We read more specifically about the temptations Jesus faced from Satan.
Temptations of worldly power, riches, influence. But in Mark’s gospel, we have
to read between the lines because Mark is quiet about those specifics. Mark
either wants us to just understand that the temptation happened or to use our
own imaginations and ponder, wonder about what Jesus might have faced in that
wilderness with those wild animals circling, with a stomach that was starving
and a throat that was burning with thirst.
I
have spent some time this week thinking long and hard about what it must have
been like for Jesus to survive those 40 days and 40 nights. I have wondered and
imagined what he must have thought about, felt, seen, heard, experienced. I’ve
tried to imagine what it might have really been like going through that long
time without anything to eat or drink, without any other humans around. Would Satan
have appeared to him in human form, as he did in the other gospels? Or would
Satan have appeared in his mind, in his dreams? Maybe it was both?
I
suspect that going that long without food and water, without hearing another
human would begin to mess with your mind. Yes, I say that even about Jesus. I
have said in other sermons about Jesus in the wilderness that too often we tend
to think of Jesus in superhuman, superhero terms. As though he could pull back
his robes and we would find a large S for Savior emblazoned on his true
superhero clothing. Writer and commentator Debie Thomas lifted up this same
idea in her lectionary essay this week. Jesus being fully divine does not
cancel out his full humanity. He would have been truly tempted. He would have
been susceptible to all the temptations that we are susceptible to. To say that
he was tempted as we are means that he was tempted. Really tempted. It’s just
that in Mark, we have to imagine what those temptations might have been.
Was
he afraid? Did the sounds of the wilderness sound sharper, louder, more
threatening the longer he was there, the hungrier and thirstier he became? Was
it just the sounds of the wilderness that made him afraid or was it the fears
he wrestled with in his own heart and mind? One of the things that Mark writes
is that after Jesus’ baptism, after the Spirit descended on him, and the clouds
opened, and he heard the voice of God speaking to him.
“You
are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.”
After
that the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Drove him, not escorted him,
not lead him. There was no gentle nudge or invitation. The Spirit drove Jesus into
the wilderness. And if the Spirit drove him there, is there a chance that Jesus
did not want to go? Is it possible that Jesus was hesitant or reluctant to go
through with this? Could Jesus have had another idea in mind about how to spend
the next month plus? Maybe? But the Spirit was not having it. The Spirit drove
Jesus into the wilderness, and Jesus stayed. Jesus obeyed.
But
what did he think about? What rose to the surface as those days marched on?
Maybe one of the temptations that he wrestled with was what his call would
require him to give up? He would have no ordinary life. He would not marry or
have children of his own. He would not get to stay in one place, content and
comfortable. He would not get to grow old. He would not belong anywhere or
really to anyone. His life would uncomfortable, challenging, daunting,
sacrificial to say the least. He would not belong.
I
use the word belong deliberately. Earlier in January I encouraged you to choose
a Star Word or let a Star Word pick you. There’s still plenty of Star Words
left by the way. The Star Word that I have is Belonging. I did not want
this word at first. I wanted something else. But I decided to stick with it,
even though it felt uncomfortable to say the least.
The
reason it is uncomfortable for me is because I have struggled with belonging
for a long, long time. When you are a geeky, funny little kid who grows into a
geeky, awkward teenager, and never fully loses the geeky, awkwardness as an
adult, sometimes belonging seems elusive at best. Then to be called into
ministry and realize that your vocation will force you to do what is hardest
for you; which is change and move and leave, belonging becomes even harder. And
when you try to belong through the many roles you play: wife, mother, daughter,
friend, neighbor, pastor, but you don’t quite fit in the way you thought you
would, belonging is a struggle.
Just
recently, a very wise person in my life told me that belonging is not about
where you are or even who you are with, belonging is about belonging to God and
belonging to yourself. If you can remember that, if you can remember that you
belong to God and that you belong to yourself, you are not as easily buffeted
by the constant change that life brings. When everything around you feels
swirling and chaotic, if you belong to yourself than you can find a stillness
within yourself. Belonging to yourself means you don’t have to be swirling and
chaotic. There’s a lot to be said for that because the world seems more chaotic
and swirling than ever before, doesn’t it?
Before I go much further, I don’t want to make
it seem in any way, shape, or form that I am equating myself to Jesus. I
realize I am using eisogesis: I am placing my own thoughts and feelings and
ideas onto this passage. I am putting myself into the wilderness and
speculating as to what might I struggle with, what I already do struggle with.
Yet, I have wandered in my own wildernesses before. I have resided in barren
places I never expected to see or hoped to go. We all have, haven’t we? The
times of wilderness in our lives are part of what it means to be human beings.
To think we can avoid them, to believe we can walk around them may be one of
the most universal of temptations.
No, I don’t know what Jesus faced in
that wilderness, not in Marks gospel anyway. But I do know that time spent in
the wilderness in scripture is not necessarily about punishment or deprivation.
Those factors may be there, but they are not the underlying reason for a
wilderness experience. Time spent in the wilderness makes us become who we are
supposed to be. Time spent in the wilderness is about forming and defining.
When the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years, they needed to
become the nation that God was calling them to be. They needed to learn to
trust God and God alone. When they left the wilderness, they would stray from
this and the consequences of their straying would be harsh. But the wilderness
time was meant to shape them, to strip away their pretense of relying on
themselves and relying solely on God.
Isn’t that what happened with Jesus
as well? Wasn’t his identity as the Messiah, the son of God, brought into sharp
and clear focus in those 40 days and 40 nights? And it will be on the cross
that the fullness of Jesus’ identity will be revealed. It seems to me that this is the gift the
wilderness offers us. It is a place to be formed and defined in heart, soul,
body. and mind. If Jesus resisted going into the wilderness, when he came out,
it was a different story. He knew his ministry. He knew his call. He was about
God’s work and there was no time to be lost. He came out of the wilderness
preaching the good news, the saving news of the gospel.
Mark does not give the specifics of
Jesus’ time in the wilderness. But we are invited to read between the lines.
And as we read between those lines, maybe we will see where we have encountered
our own wildernesses. When we read between the lines, maybe we will understand
a little more, grasp a little more clearly who God calls us to be, what God
calls us to do, and where God calls us to go. Maybe it is in between the lines
that we find out where we belong, and to whom we belong. Maybe the good news
has been between the lines all along.
Let all of God’s children say,
“Alleluia.”
Amen.
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