Mark 1:9-15

The wilderness interrupts.  Our gospel lesson on the this first Sunday of Lent is primed for a three-point sermon; a point about baptismal identity, a point about temptation in the wilderness and a point about proclaiming the good news.  Three clear pericopes.  It would be easy to dismiss the need for any unifying thread by calling upon Mark’s stylistic brevity as an excuse.  We could lean into Mark’s ‘immediate’ approach and focus on each individual section on its own terms.  This is precisely what the headings inserted into the text in our Bibles seem to lead us to do.[i]

Compartmentalizing feels much more comfortable than dealing with the hard truth that the wilderness interrupts. Imagine for a moment what would happen if we removed Mark 1:12-13. We would have a much more cohesive narrative beginning this John’s Baptism and ending with his arrest. In this imagined story without the wilderness, Jesus would meet John by the Jordan. Jesus would be baptized, the sky would be torn open, the dove-like Spirit would rest upon him and the voice from heaven would reveal that Jesus is; “…my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Then from the high ground, the power, the strength and the clarity of this new identity we could skip straight to verse 14 where Jesus jumps into ministry. John is arrested and Jesus is primed to take his place proclaiming Good News, a kingdom drawing near and the need to repent and believe.

We tend to be much more comfortable trying to live out a wilderness free ministry methodology. We power up, then we proclaim. We strive to work our way into God’s favor and then once procured, we use it to proclaim good news. We receive a passionate, sky-rending call, and then with all of our pent-up passion, still feeling dove footprints on our shoulder, we go out and we preach. We move from power and passion to preaching. We move with haste from knowing with certainty what is right, to doing the right thing. We have embraced the idea that personal power however acquired must precede preaching for it to be profitable.

Mark does not allow us to go to this place because the wilderness of verses 12-13 interrupt our power to preaching delusion. The wilderness of the Roman-Jewish war had interrupted the lives of Mark’s first hearers. Vespasian, the would-be Roman emperor, consolidated his forces in the same region Mark’s hearers lived their daily lives. From that region Vespasian destroyed villages, enslaved people and ultimately sent general Titus to lay siege to Jerusalem and destroy the temple in 70 AD.

Shortly after the Roman-Jewish War, multitudes of Jewish prisoners perished in games with wild beasts. Titus sent many Jews captured during the siege of Jerusalem “to various provinces,to be destroyed in theatres by the sword or by wild beasts.[ii]

Baptism & Identity

The war had left a wasteland. “So, it was an anxious, urgent time. Everything had either already changed, or it was just about to.”[iii] For those first Jewish Christians there was no earthly kingdom to look to for refuge. The Romans were oppressors. The Jewish capital was left in ruins. It must have been a true relief to hear Mark’s words that at Jesus baptism, the sky was torn open and a new kingdom had come down. This was a peaceful kingdom whose sign was a common dove resting rather than the ensign of a Roman eagle conquering and enslaving. It was a kingdom marked by repentance, as John the Baptist had proclaimed, not subjugation.

Why did Jesus join John in the waters for a baptism of repentance, when he had no sin to turn from? Perhaps it was to demonstrate humility and solidarity with people and God’s way of living in this new kingdom that had drawn near. When thinking of repentance, we are often consumed by thoughts of what we have to repent from. We give most of our attention to what sins we need to turn from. Perhaps there in the waters of baptism, Jesus was repenting forward; turning toward a new calling. The voice from heaven seems to confirm this as Jesus emerges from the water. Remember that repentance is not just about what we are turning from, but who we are turning toward. Jesus was not turning from sin. He is turning towards his heavenly Father seeking to live in union with Him.

The Wilderness

The Spirit that alighted so gently upon Jesus as a dove begins flapping its wings and chasing Jesus into the wilderness. It drives him not to crowds so he can preach and gain popularity, but to deserted places where he can unity with God. Jesus is cast out into a lonely and solitary place where there is no one to be impressed by his divine moniker of “Beloved Son.” God being pleased with him does not make survival in the desert any easier. There in the wilderness, Jesus was tempted by Satan. Unlike Matthew, Mark gives us no details regarding the temptations. Like Mark’s first hearers, Jesus lived in the midst of dangers and the threat of being torn apart by wild beasts. In the wilderness Jesus ceases to be a give and become a receiver as the angels waited on him.

The wilderness interrupts our certainties about who God is and who we are. As we become hermits (the Greek word for wilderness is where we get the term hermit) our thinking regarding what is right gets fuzzy in the heat and the hardship.

The wilderness interrupts our abilities to produce good works by our own power. Being in a solitary place means there is no one to serve. There is no religious work in which to bury ourselves other than prayer. There are no spiritual products for us to market or manufacture.

The wilderness interrupts our attempts at self-promotion and publicity. As we wander in the desolate places there is no one to be impressed by what we do or say. All we can do is wait and pay attention to God.

“There is some­thing within us that knows that Christian love is more than what we think or even what we do.”[iv] The wilderness is the space provided for us to correct and direct the affections of our hearts. The Spirit shoves Jesus into a place where his heaven spoken identity is put to the test. His only tasks are to patiently discern, stay alive, resist any temptation that would dilute or diminish his union with God’s calling and then receive gratefully whatever help is offered. Wesley reminds us that, “So in all the children of God, extraordinary manifestations of his favour are wont to be followed by extraordinary temptations.”[v]

Ministry

Only after the interruption of the wilderness and the arrest of John does Jesus begin to proclaim the good news of God. Jesus’ practice of preaching throughout Galilee, healing and casting out demons takes shape the way it does because of the wilderness interruption. Having over come the temptations of the devil in the wilderness prepared him to cast our demons. Having come to grips with his own human frailties by enduring hunger, thirst and weakness for forty days prepared Jesus to be a compassionate healer. It was from a heart united with God in wilderness that Jesus was able to teach with authority in the synagogues. It was in the wilderness that his message and what he was asking of people became clear, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

Taking It Home

In part the wilderness that interrupts us has been Covid-19. The Spirit has driven the church to dark places where it has been forced to face its own mortality and come to grips with what it means to have a savior who has suffered and died. Even in the barrens of this disease that tempts us to despair and hopelessness, we would be wise to remember the words of Thomas Merton who wrote,

But because Christ came down into this no-man’s land of sin, to find us and bring us back to His Kingdom, we are able to discover the living God in the very darkness of what seems to be His utter absence.  And what is more, it may be that we find Him there more truly than when we thought we saw Him in the light of our own dim day.[vi]

As pastors we need to help our congregations understand why the wilderness matters and why God’s loving Spirit is driving us there just like Jesus.

The wilderness teaches us humility. Being in lonely places for a long time reminds us that even though we are God’s beloved children with whom he is well pleased, this does not give us permission to be arrogant or presume upon our position. Jesus identity as God’s Son did not keep him from knowing hunger, thirst, rejection and even a humiliating death. Jesus identity as God’s Son meant that he could lord it over people if he wanted to. The wilderness taught him that such hubris is not God’s way and is inconsistent with what it means to be God’s anointed. Our certainty about who we know ourselves to be in Jesus does not give us permission to be unkind or puffed up. The deprivations of the wilds teach us that even with God given certainties the affections of our hearts must be turned toward love and self-denial.

The wilderness teaches us to repent forward. For Jesus, his time in the wilderness was not a matter of him turning from his own sin. The wilds moved Jesus to live in total union with the heavenly Father. Jesus turned from the good things that could distract him from unity with God in purpose, approach and practice. During Lent I have no doubt there that are sins we need to turn from. Let’s make sure that we lead our people to turn toward uniting fully with God.

The wilderness hones the affections of our hearts. Between what we know is right (orthodoxy) and what we do that is right (orthopraxy) must come a wilderness that trains our hearts to be right (orthopathy). The wilderness helps us discern the ‘how’ of matters. It teaches us how to think rightly without tearing down those who might not share our views. The wilds teach us how to act justly without a hint of anger or self-satisfaction. As the wilderness compels us to lean into a loving God for our survival, we come to recognize that our best thoughts devoid of a loving heart are foolish and our most righteous acts done without Spirit inspired affections (see the fruits of the Spirit) become little more than another kind of oppression. The wilderness shows us how to navigate our context and truly Christian thinkers and doers.

May God meet and sustain you as the wilderness interrupts.

[i] Mark 1:1-9, NRSV. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+1&version=NRSV

[ii] Kimondo, Stephen Simon. The Gospel of Mark and the Roman-Jewish War of 66–70 CE: Jesus’ Story as a Contrast to the Events of the War (p. 137). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.

[iii] Rick Morley, Baptismal Urgency: A Reflection on Mark 1:9-15 -http://www.rickmorley.com/archives/1437?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=baptismal-urgency-a-reflection-on-mark-19-15

[iv]Mark Maddix & Diane Leclerc- Pastoral Practices: A Wesleyan Paradigm. Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City, 2013, pg. 22

[v]John Wesley – Wesley’s Notes, – https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/notes.i.iii.ii.html

[vi] Thomas Merton. Bread In The Wilderness. The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1953, Pg. 149