Luke 4:1
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness...
Epiphany, our season of Light and Manifestation has ended for this year and with Ash Wednesday this past week we have moved into Lent - which has an entirely different feel for us. In Epiphany, we were reminded to look outward and see the revelation of God all around us. During Lent, we will be called to look inward and see ourselves.
Just a few weeks ago we sat here and read the story of Jesus being baptized by the wild preacher, John. And next after that we heard of Jesus beginning his public ministry by traveling from synagogue to synagogue, village to village, expounding on the scriptures and teaching and beginning to draw crowds when he did so.
I mentioned at the time that we had skipped over one very important story in the middle of this story line – that of Jesus’ time spent out “in the wilderness,” praying and fasting and being tempted. Well, this is that story today. Last week we had an extra-lengthy scripture reading. This week I have considerably shortened the original text.
The longer version is primarily about Satan tempting Jesus – and Jesus’ response. I think we all know that story: the Tempter telling the hungry Jesus to turn stones into bread – and being rebuffed; telling him to throw himself off the cliffs because, after all, angels will swoop in to protect him from harm – and being rebuffed again; and so on. But I’m not really interested in temptation today and so I chopped our reading down to one verse:
Just a few weeks ago we sat here and read the story of Jesus being baptized by the wild preacher, John. And next after that we heard of Jesus beginning his public ministry by traveling from synagogue to synagogue, village to village, expounding on the scriptures and teaching and beginning to draw crowds when he did so.
I mentioned at the time that we had skipped over one very important story in the middle of this story line – that of Jesus’ time spent out “in the wilderness,” praying and fasting and being tempted. Well, this is that story today. Last week we had an extra-lengthy scripture reading. This week I have considerably shortened the original text.
The longer version is primarily about Satan tempting Jesus – and Jesus’ response. I think we all know that story: the Tempter telling the hungry Jesus to turn stones into bread – and being rebuffed; telling him to throw himself off the cliffs because, after all, angels will swoop in to protect him from harm – and being rebuffed again; and so on. But I’m not really interested in temptation today and so I chopped our reading down to one verse:
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness...
Why? Why did Spirit lead him into the wilderness? That’s our question for today. We know we can meet God anywhere. We can pray and fast anywhere. We can even be tempted anywhere, if that was the whole point of the exercise.
The one person we often have a difficult time reaching in the middle of anywhere – surrounded by family and friends and daily demands – is our self. Jesus was led – by the Spirit, out into the wilderness in order to find himself. Luke doesn’t give us a physical description of this wilderness but from what we know today of this region and from other descriptions of the terrain to be found in scripture it would have been a harsh, dry, rocky desert wilderness, but the harshness of the story’s setting isn’t really what it’s about.
Wilderness comes in all shapes and sizes. In the Bible, wilderness is most always desert, but the early inhabitants of what is now the United States met a green and lushly forested wilderness – so desert terrain is not necessary. Many times the wilderness does not have a geological setting of any kind.
We have each of us, whether we think of it that way or not, at sometime inhabited our own wildernesses – those dark nights of the soul when God seemed impossibly distant from us, or worse yet, totally non-existent. Sitting by the bedside of someone dearly loved whom we know is leaving us and there’s nothing we can do about it; experiencing a marriage fall to pieces around us when we had built our life within it; having a long-held dream come just within our reach then watching it being snatched away at the very last moment.
Lately, I’ve watched the pictures on the news of the refugees pouring out of Syria and seen the total devastation of what was once their homes – reduced to nothing but rubble for miles in every direction. These people cannot go home again because there is no there there – not even anything with which to rebuild. I’ve seen them walking out with nothing but the packs on the backs and no place in the world where they can go - no place that really wants them. Those poor souls are truly living in the wilderness right now.
This is the wilderness Jesus entered – no food, no warmth, no companionship, no comfort – just himself – and the Spirit who led him -- into a wilderness where there was nothing to find...but himself.
And he found himself. When he left that wilderness after his forty days (which in Hebrew parlance simply meant a long, long time) – he came out and he went straight to the work he had found that he was called by God to do. Remember, Jesus was thirty years old at this time and up until now he had been totally anonymous as far as history is concerned. As far as his ministry is concerned Jesus went from nowhere to all-in in one magnificent leap.
But he had heard that voice calling him “beloved Son.” And he had spent time alone in the wilderness seeking the one who gave him that name, and in his seeking he had found himself and, it appears, he never doubted again.
Whether our wildernesses are of our own seeking or are forced upon us, we too must spend time finding ourselves – finding out who it is that God is calling us to be, what it is that God is calling us to do. We won’t find the answer in a book. We won’t even find it in the pastor’s Sunday sermon (believe it or not). We will only find it if we are willing to venture into the scariest wilderness of all – the one inside ourselves, in our darkest, most secret places.
Edward Abbey is a name you probably won’t find among most people’s lists of the great theologians. He was an environmentalist and author and “pot-stirrer” extraordinaire. He was also wild and profane and not above breaking the law for his own purposes. He said something once that I believe encapsulates my message today very nicely. “Wilderness,” he said, “is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.”
Abbey, as an environmentalist, may have been talking about geographic wilderness, but I believe that periodic journeys into the spiritual wilderness inside our own souls where we spend time alone with just God and ourselves are also no luxury but an absolute necessity for our spirits. This is what the “looking inward” of Lent is all about.
May we all have the Spirit of God as our guide.
The one person we often have a difficult time reaching in the middle of anywhere – surrounded by family and friends and daily demands – is our self. Jesus was led – by the Spirit, out into the wilderness in order to find himself. Luke doesn’t give us a physical description of this wilderness but from what we know today of this region and from other descriptions of the terrain to be found in scripture it would have been a harsh, dry, rocky desert wilderness, but the harshness of the story’s setting isn’t really what it’s about.
Wilderness comes in all shapes and sizes. In the Bible, wilderness is most always desert, but the early inhabitants of what is now the United States met a green and lushly forested wilderness – so desert terrain is not necessary. Many times the wilderness does not have a geological setting of any kind.
We have each of us, whether we think of it that way or not, at sometime inhabited our own wildernesses – those dark nights of the soul when God seemed impossibly distant from us, or worse yet, totally non-existent. Sitting by the bedside of someone dearly loved whom we know is leaving us and there’s nothing we can do about it; experiencing a marriage fall to pieces around us when we had built our life within it; having a long-held dream come just within our reach then watching it being snatched away at the very last moment.
Lately, I’ve watched the pictures on the news of the refugees pouring out of Syria and seen the total devastation of what was once their homes – reduced to nothing but rubble for miles in every direction. These people cannot go home again because there is no there there – not even anything with which to rebuild. I’ve seen them walking out with nothing but the packs on the backs and no place in the world where they can go - no place that really wants them. Those poor souls are truly living in the wilderness right now.
This is the wilderness Jesus entered – no food, no warmth, no companionship, no comfort – just himself – and the Spirit who led him -- into a wilderness where there was nothing to find...but himself.
And he found himself. When he left that wilderness after his forty days (which in Hebrew parlance simply meant a long, long time) – he came out and he went straight to the work he had found that he was called by God to do. Remember, Jesus was thirty years old at this time and up until now he had been totally anonymous as far as history is concerned. As far as his ministry is concerned Jesus went from nowhere to all-in in one magnificent leap.
But he had heard that voice calling him “beloved Son.” And he had spent time alone in the wilderness seeking the one who gave him that name, and in his seeking he had found himself and, it appears, he never doubted again.
Whether our wildernesses are of our own seeking or are forced upon us, we too must spend time finding ourselves – finding out who it is that God is calling us to be, what it is that God is calling us to do. We won’t find the answer in a book. We won’t even find it in the pastor’s Sunday sermon (believe it or not). We will only find it if we are willing to venture into the scariest wilderness of all – the one inside ourselves, in our darkest, most secret places.
Edward Abbey is a name you probably won’t find among most people’s lists of the great theologians. He was an environmentalist and author and “pot-stirrer” extraordinaire. He was also wild and profane and not above breaking the law for his own purposes. He said something once that I believe encapsulates my message today very nicely. “Wilderness,” he said, “is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread.”
Abbey, as an environmentalist, may have been talking about geographic wilderness, but I believe that periodic journeys into the spiritual wilderness inside our own souls where we spend time alone with just God and ourselves are also no luxury but an absolute necessity for our spirits. This is what the “looking inward” of Lent is all about.
May we all have the Spirit of God as our guide.
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