Wilderness

Mark 1:9-15

The season of lent is our journey in the wilderness. Faith is an ongoing journey and Lent meets many of us, right where we usually are, on our spiritual quests for the divine, as we try to reconcile ourselves: our lives, our desires, our motives with God’s.

If we think we’ve arrived, if we think we know who God is and exactly what God wants from us, then this Lenten journey may hold some surprises.

Ever pithy, the gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus was in the wilderness, tempted by Satan, with wild beasts, and Angels who waited on him. And that the Spirit led him there.

Before his sojourn in the wilds, Jesus is baptized. We revisit the baptism of Jesus because Lent was originally, first and foremost, a season of preparation for baptism. For those initiates who were to be baptized on Easter, their three years of preparation culminated in a fast with the entire congregation who would renew their own vows on Easter.

Jesus’ baptism is a moment, both of initiation and clarity. The Spirit’s revelation of his divine identity rips through the heavens.

Just as his baptism reveals Jesus’ divine nature, his temptation reveals his human nature. The Spirit descends upon him “like a dove” and then drives him into the wilderness.
These 40 days solidify the identity and vocation of Jesus. He goes in with the Spirit, to find Satan, wild beasts, and angels. Fortunately, for us, Jesus passes through the time of trial and emerges to begin proclaiming “the good news of God.”

The wilderness is his place of discernment, his education, his seminary, his anointing, his commissioning, his ordination. The place where he finds himself and finds the courage to be himself: to be the divine son of God, to except God’s mantle, and turn in ministry to all the world.

Jesus’ time in the wilderness lasts 40 days. This length of time is a sacred period, found throughout the Hebrew Bible. The flood in Genesis lasts for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses spends 40 days with God on Mt. Sinai. The Hebrew slaves roam in the desert for 40 days. Elijah traveled 40 days to Mount Horeb, where like Moses, he received a word from God.

For these fathers of Israel, these periods were holy and uncertain. Times of humility and trust, danger and blessing, fear and amazement. It is no small thing to spend time in the company of God.

In the wasteland, Jesus reenacts the journey of Noah and his family on the ark, of the Israelites release from slavery and wanderings. He meets God as did Moses and Elijah. He lives out part of the stories of his people. He takes into himself the covenantal promises of God after the flood and relives the trauma of slavery. He remembers their past in order to enter into their future. To be their full liberation, to understand their need
for rebirth.

For us, like for Jesus, these days are a time of soul searching and turning again toward God. For taking a hard look at our selves and our lives. Our history and our future. Who we have been and who we are becoming.

As we enter into our period of wandering, we must discern where our wilderness is, watch for temptations, our wild beasts, and our angels.



A couple of weeks ago, our Together on Wednesday group took a trip up to Christ Church and walked their labyrinth.

The labyrinth is a complexly designed path of turns and circles. It’s like a maze, except that there are no choices or dead ins, there is one way to walk into the center and that same way leads you back out. In Christian practice, the labyrinth is very much a metaphor for the spiritual journey. It can be used in place of walking a pilgrimage journey or as a practice of penitence. The one at Christ church is a canvas mat with the paths printed on it. It fills a large room and about 12 of us walked it at the same time, though at different paces.

While all of our experiences were different and unique, they were also similar. We experienced both peace and anxiety on the journey, the desire to slow it down or hurry it up—the feeling like we’d never get to the center, and surprise when we found ourselves at the end. We noticed that we were a community on this journey, sometimes walking side by side, sometimes nearly colliding and sharing space, and sometimes far away, off on our own with our backs turned.

The beauty of the labyrinth is that it is impossible to get lost. We travel it to come closer to God—to quiet ourselves—to focus on the experience—to open ourselves to God—whether we hear God’s voice, or draw closer to God in the silence. It’s a commitment, to walk the whole way without giving up and cutting across lines. But there’s the promise too, that we will find our way to the center and find our way back out.

The advice for walking the labyrinth is the same as journeying during Lent. Travel purposefully. Observe the process. Be attentive. Find the path by walking it.

We join in solidarity with all the pilgrims before—with slaves and prophets. With those who have wandered in the desert, climbed mountain tops, weathered the storms, and have found God—because God was with them, all along.
With Noah in the covenant of a rainbow, with Elijah in the still, small voice after the whirlwinds, with Moses in the commandments, with the people of Israel in the manna—with Jesus in the angels.

We travel on our own paths and also together, as a community.

I don’t know what directions your individual journeys will take: what you will discover about God and about yourself, just as I don’t know what I will discover. As we journey, we may find temptations and wild beasts—there may be dragons in our labyrinth afterall. It can be a frightening journey. We may have to change, we may have to give something up, we will likely be uncomfortable.

But there are also the assurance of angels. And the assurance that our spiritual journey begins and ends with God. God call us out of ourselves, to come and out to the desert, God will go with us, guide us, and lead us home.

We know that Lent will lead us to the cross and then to resurrection, that we go with God and God goes with us, and God is at the end of the journey. And though its not a journey of comfort, there is assurance, because the cross won’t kill God in the end.

Lent ultimately ends with Easter. Jesus survives the wilderness and the cross and the world is a better place because of that.

Listen to this Lenten poem by Jan Richardson:

I am not asking you
to take this wilderness from me,
to remove this place of starkness
where I come to know
the wildness within me,
where I learn to call the names
of the ravenous beasts
that pace inside me,
to finger the brambles
that snake through my veins
to taste the thirst
that tugs at my tongue.

But send me
tough angels,
sweet wine,
strong bread;
just enough.

Amen.