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Lent 1C
March 6, 2022
Luke 4:1-13
INTRODUCTION
We have officially begun the season of Lent! Often we talk about this season as a “journey” – as we travel with Jesus toward the cross and of course out of the tomb on Easter. It’s traditionally a penitential season, and often one in which people prepare to be baptized, usually at the Easter Vigil, the eve of Easter. All of that is very much a journey.
It’s wonderful and useful imagery. But the writers of our Lenten series this year, entitled, You Are Here, noticed something else in the assigned readings for Lent this year: that in addition to the journey imagery, there is a strong sense of place throughout our Lenten readings. Yes, today Jesus is drawn out into the wilderness by the Spirit (journey), but then he stays in that place for 40 days, and God is there. Yes, the Israelites wander through the wilderness (journey) but then they find the Promised Land (place). Today’s Psalm has all kinds of place-related words: dwell, abide, inhabit. And Romans begins with the bold declaration that “the word is near you, on your lips and in your heart” – God is just about as close as he can get! Often we are so busy moving, that we don’t take the time to just stay still and notice how God is with us in this place, in whatever place we find ourselves. So, as you listen today – notice that! See how many times you notice God meeting us and all God’s people right where we are. Let’s listen.
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| Artist: Grace Rehbaum, age 6 |
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I’m already enjoying the way our Lenten focus on place, rather than journey, has made me see our assigned Lenten text differently. For example, while I may have otherwise focused on the way the Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness, the desert, and seen this as an essential point on a larger journey… instead, I’m really noticing and appreciating the place of the wilderness. I’m noticing the importance of simply dwelling right where you are, finding God there, and from that place, gaining the gifts that it has to offer. Yes, even a place like the wilderness has many gifts to offer, if we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand.
The wilderness theme is a prominent one in the Bible – and just to be clear, when we talk about wilderness in the Bible, we’re not talking about a rejuvenating camping trip in the mountains. We’re talking desert, a desolate place. The most obvious places the wilderness theme appears are in the stories of the Israelites wandering for 40 years in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land (we heard part of that this morning), and this story about Jesus being tempted in the wilderness after 40 days of fasting. In both cases, the wilderness is a place of self-discovery. It is a place of lack, a place without usual comforts, and that very lack is what brings about the discovery – discovery of the source of our true sustenance, God.
Of course we all have our own wilderness experiences. I have imagined these past two pandemic years as a sort of wilderness, a time without many of our usual patterns and comforts. That’s an obvious experience we largely share, but such a wilderness can come about in our lives in any number of forms – any time we are lacking in understanding, or comfort, or in the ability to have our physical or emotional needs met. In fact, the three temptations Jesus faces can show us some of the ways such a place can look.
The first attack the devil makes on Jesus is his hunger. And what human has not known hunger? I’m not thinking of those familiar grumblings in our tummies, but rather – haven’t we all felt a sense of being empty? Several weeks ago, with the story of the wedding at Cana, I talked about how I felt like those six empty jars, especially after two years of a pandemic that has left many of feeling unsatisfied and over-stressed. I have many times, since preaching that sermon, thought about those empty jars again! Most of us have, at some point, felt emptiness in our tummies, yes, but also in our relationships, in our work, in our sense of purpose.
In Jesus’ case, he could easily have cheated his way out of his hunger, as the devil suggests. And I suppose we try to do that, too. We are forever seeking to fill our emptiness with distractions, or addictions, or some new and interesting thing to occupy our minds and time. We push through, ignoring and thus missing what that emptiness, that hunger, is trying to teach us. You see, that is what our focus on place is showing me this week – that Jesus may not have chosen to be led to that wilderness place (the Spirit did that), but he did choose to stay there, and learn and receive the gifts it had to offer. What could we receive, if we learned to dwell in our hunger? We may learn that we can be hungry and loved at the same time. We can be both hurting and hopeful. Jesus points to the word of God as that which will feed us – and indeed, while it may not feed us in the way we imagined, nor as quickly as we hoped, we can trust that when God feeds us from God’s own hand, we will be nourished.
Next, the devil goes after Jesus’ ego, and this is something we know all too much about. We all want to be admired, to be liked, to be appreciated for who we are and what we have to offer. And that sneaky snake promises this to Jesus: “You see all these kingdoms of the world? I can have them falling at your feet in praise. You just worship me, and all of these will worship you.”
Now I’m under no illusion that whole kingdoms will ever worship me, nor do I want that. But, I suspect I’m not alone in that I really want people to like me! And notice, affirm, and praise my good work! It begs the question: how important to us is it, to get that from people? What would we do to make it happen? What would we be willing to sacrifice? Time with our families? Time with God? Our prayer life? Rest? Over what do we wish to maintain control, even to the detriment of our relationships or well-being, in order to be liked, praised, and noticed?
But Jesus unequivocally says no amount of prestige or accolades are worth turning our devotion away from God. And that is the lesson we learn by staying in this wilderness place of egotistical desire: that God must always be the one we worship – not our position, not our success, not our reputation, not even our families. Worship the Lord your God and serve him only – all the rest flows from there. After all, God is the one who loves us even in our sinfulness, so why should anyone else’s opinion of us matter?
Finally, in this place already marked by discomfort, the devil takes a swing at Jesus’ sense of safety – just how much will Jesus trust God with this most basic human need? “You sound pretty confident,” the devil says. “Okay then, show me just how confident you really are, and throw yourself off this peak. After all, the very scripture you’ve been quoting to me says that God will protect you. So, prove it!” Again, I’m not likely to test God this extremely, but I can think of times when I’ve been in that wilderness place – uncertain, fearful, and yes, feeling a certain lack of safety – when I have tested God in my own ways, making an assumption that if I am truly loved and cared for by God, then God won’t let bad things happen to me. “I’m a good person,” I think, “and beloved by God, so God will keep me safe from Covid if I go to this event, or from a car accident if I speed, or from some other tragedy.” We all want to believe that!
Once again, Jesus could easily have shut the devil right up and proven God’s power, and absolutely justified that choice! But Jesus doesn’t. Again, he stays in the wilderness place, and puts his trust in God’s hands, not tests. Jesus has no need to prove his belovedness; he already knows it! And this is the gift he receives in this wilderness: the awareness that God loves us not apart from the vulnerability of our humanity, or the suffering we sometimes endure because of it, but even as we are in it. Even as we suffer, God is there, loving us, upholding us. After all, God’s power is made perfect in weakness.
Jesus’ time in the wilderness – the time that he chooses to remain in that place – is full of the lessons that can only come about when we don’t rush to get out of a place of pain, liminality, and struggle. Our natural inclination may be to distract, escape, appear stronger than we are to hide our fears, maintain control to give us a sense of safety or competence, or maybe even make ourselves smaller to avoid attention. But what Jesus shows us during his own time in the wilderness, is the gifts we can get from remaining in place for a time, looking around, and listening to the Spirit of love who led us there for a purpose. There, in the wilderness, we do as the Psalmist says: we “make the Lord [our] refuge and stronghold.” When you do that, the Psalmist goes on, “no evil will be befall you, nor shall affliction come near your dwelling.”
This first place we encounter during this Lent, the wilderness, may at first seem like a place to get out of quickly. But it is also a holy place, a place of self-discovery. And because God is there, it can serve as a place of new creation, where we can discern God’s hope and will for us. In Jesus’ time in the wilderness, he chooses emptiness over fullness, obscurity over honor, and vulnerability over rescue – gifts he would go on to use to bring about our salvation by dying on a cross, the most empty, obscure, and vulnerable place imaginable. And from there, from that place, he brings new life for all.
Are we willing to stay in our own wilderness, look around, and see what gifts God might be bestowing on us there – and even, to be redeemed?
Let us pray… Incarnate God, you did not shy away from experiencing our humanity fully with us, spending time in the desert and being tempted by the same struggles we face ourselves. Thank you for bringing redemption even to those places. Help us to trust this is true also for us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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