Lent I
B - 2015 - Feb. 22, 2015 * Calvary
Episcopal Church
Text: Mark 1:12-13
Sometimes the Holy Spirit plays
rough.
Look at what happens to the
Beloved…Mark tells us in our gospel reading this morning. Listen to the language he uses.
At
Jesus’ Baptism, immediately (Mark’s favorite word) the heavens opened,
the word in Greek (schizo) means ripped open or ripped apart. You can hear this root word in our word
schizophrenic – a condition in which one’s psyche is ripped apart -- Mark goes on…. and the Spirit descended
upon him like a dove...
When I was working on this sermon, I
started wondering what Mark was saying - that the Spirit descended upon him
like a dove and I learned that doves can fly up to 55 mph.
For years, I've imagined this scene as
peaceful, bucolic but this is not what Mark is saying -- his imagery is very
strong, intense. The heavens were ripped opened and the Spirit descended on Jesus - rapidly, with
a pointed focus. Bam! This is no gentle, wafting flight - like a feather - but focused
- almost instantaneous and goes right with the ripping heaven..and with what
happens next -- Jesus is driven into the wilderness by the same
Spirit...
This
is not Jesus gradually sensing that he is being called into the wilderness and
so he finds himself moving in that direction...nope -- the meaning of the Greek
word (ekballo) is more akin to
being shot out of a cannon. He was
thrown by the Spirit into the desert.
In
Mark, the workings of the Spirit, are
not gentle, gradual movements but display a power, urgency, and intensity that
we may find a little frightening if we don't understand that God works this way
sometimes.
I wonder, are we willing to let the Holy Spirit of God
treat us like this?
In a way, the experience of pandemic
is like being thrown out in the desert -
we have been in the wilderness of Lent
for almost year.. like it or not…we have been living with anxiety, fear, dread, and loss…just like God’s
people in the desert, like Noah and his family floating on the endless sea….
What happened with Jesus?
With characteristic terseness, Mark
tells us -- he was there for forty days,
he was tempted by Satan, he was with the wild beasts, and angels
ministered to him.
There
are some details to notice…..Think about the number forty. Mark is squarely placing Jesus in the
spiritual history of God's people -
Israel. Noah floated over a drowned
civilization, under starry skies with no land in sight for forty days and
nights – have you ever felt this adrift? - and he had to trust that the same God who had pressed
him to the safety of an ark would sustain him through this time in a watery
desert. And his journey culminated in a rainbow
covenant that never again would God destroy the earth…
And
God's people, after miraculously being freed from slavery in Egypt, wandered in
the desert for forty years - having to learn to follow and trust the God who
had freed them. Tempted at every turn by
fear and anxiety – fear of thirst and
starvation, and fear of abandonment, fear that this God who Moses kept talking
about had actually led them into the desert to kill them all and they longed
for the old familiar foods, places, and gods.
With great difficulty, they learned to follow the God who led them -
cloud by day and fire by night -- and their journey culminated in a covenant at
Mt. Sinai -- I will be your God, and you will be my people -- and they received
the gift of the Torah so that they might live rightly and honor the covenant
they had made with God.
And now, Jesus, throw out into the
desert for forty days and nights, like Noah, like Israel, like us -- where he
was tempted...
While Mark does not tell us what the
temptations were he does add that he was with the wild beasts –and that the
angels ministered to him…
I think this note is very curious --
what is Mark trying to say? Was it that
Jesus was in fear of his life from the desert predators? Or was it, that remarkably, they left him
alone or perhaps were even companions in the way that animals can be... --
remember that in Isaiah's vision of shalom, the healing and restoration of the
creation (Is. 11.6) , that the lion (or the wolf) shall lie down with the lamb?
This is the allusion...in that brief time in the desert, Jesus foreshadows
shalom...he is at peace and dwells with them...and, then, Mark says -- angels
ministered to him. My mental picture of this for a long time was that they
brought him food and drink - like divine servers in a restaurant... BUT,
remember that the word angel means messenger...they bore communications back
and forth...sort of like a two way radio...and Jesus' communion with the Father
was established and strengthened there in the wilderness... do you think Jesus and the Father entered into a
covenant? Remember that, at the last
Supper, we, God’s people – all humanity – all times - were invited into a new
covenant with God – sealed with love and sacrifice.
Now
to us, the book I’m reading this year
for Lent is about St. Julian of Norwich
who was born in 1343. She was a mystic,
was literate, had amazing visions she recorded, and was an anchorite – which is a kind of
hermit who lives in a small room usually attached to the church with a window
through which people can talk to her or
him and seek advice. They devote
themselves to prayer and serving God in this way.
She
lived through the wilderness of multiple
pandemics – the bubonic plague- and wrote about it… the first came when she was
just seven years old, then again when she was 19, then again, in 1375 when she
was 32 and twice afterwards during her lifetime. It is thought that her parents
died the first time and then her husband and children during the second pandemic. Historians now believe the multiple pandemics
of that time killed between one in two and one in three people in Europe, and
like Covid, it was a global pandemic.
What
can Julian teach us about how to navigate through these wilderness times? ..
the first and most important thing she advises is to “examine our goals and
intentions… to use the occasion to strip everything down to the essential
questions: Why am I here? What/whom do I wish to serve?”
I
suspect this was the wrestling Jesus was called to in the wilderness…. and this
Lent, 2021, calls us to the same
questions – both as individuals and as Church..Why are we here? Whom or what do we wish to serve?
As you know, throughout his ministry,
Jesus went to the deserted places where he could be away from others and from
the very real needs pressing in on him from every side, to be still, to hear the voice of God, and to seek
direction.
Likewise, Lent invites us to go deeper…
to enter more deeply into prayer and whatever spiritual practices that help us step
away from distractions and all of the dependencies of our lives – and to
listen, to listen deeply as we wrestle with Julian’s questions – why am I here,
what or whom do I wish to serve?” or to
whatever questions the Spirit leads you to ponder.
If
we follow Jesus into the wilderness – like him, we will surely see more clearly
what is tempting us to move away from God and to do battle with it…and like
Jesus we may find ourselves at peace with the wild beasts around us, and be
ministered to by angels…
So, let us step into the wilderness..despite
anxiety, despite fear…. for surely, in the silence and emptiness, above all, we will meet Jesus there. He waits
for us: for you, for me. Let us go. Amen.
Fox, M., & Starr, M. (2020). Julian
of Norwich: Wisdom in a time of pandemic -- and beyond. Bloomington, IN:
IUniverse.
Ibid
