The wilderness of
Nobody in his right mind would
want to go there. Lots of people from my seminary went there during the January
term to study, and I have seen thousands of their pictures. They all look exactly alike…nothing
like the
The wilderness of
But the "wilderness" is a
recurring theme in the Bible. In the first place, there it was, a fact of life for them, like the Vikings and the sea
or the Eskimos and snow.
The wilderness was life or death. But part of that equation was life, so the wilderness had a positive image as well. It symbolized a simpler place and time in their past, when the issues before them were clearer. It was a place you might go to be freed from all other distractions and concentrate on what really matters, turn within and do some soul work. It represented survival against all odds, Divine help and rescue. It was a place to find God. In later years Christian monks went out into the desert to be alone in their spiritual journey, to learn how to depend on God alone. Even now, you find monasteries and retreat centers in deserts all over the world.
So I suppose that's why Jesus was led by the Spirit to go into the wilderness. He was seeking God, perhaps even testing God. But can you imagine anything more foreign to the spirit of our times? Intentionally depriving yourself to work on your character? Intentionally endangering your body because you think it's more dangerous not to work on your soul?
The desert is a place to meet God, but ironically it is also the place of temptation, not least of which is to get out of the desert altogether and leave the hard spirit journey behind. In our self-pampering times, we aren't likely to go there on purpose. Even in that figurative wilderness where life sometimes takes us kicking and screaming, we are tempted to run away from what God is saying to us, abandon our faith and resort to creature comforts as our first priority.
Jesus went into the wilderness on purpose to prepare for his spiritual vocation. He had just heard God's voice calling at his baptism, pointing him in the direction of the suffering servant model, the one who would give himself for the sake of his people. "Immediately," as Mark puts it, he went out to the wilderness, presumably to work out what that would mean and whether he really wanted to do it. But while he went there on purpose to seek God, the wilderness became a place of temptation for Jesus to do something else, to follow a different path than the one God laid out before him. It was a life or death contest in which we all had something at stake.
We aren't told how Jesus perceived the devil testing his resolve. Did Evil pop up now and then like a weasel? Did he speak through mirages, those optical illusions you see in the desert, especially when you've had nothing to eat or drink for a while and the sun is broiling your brain? Or did Jesus perceive temptation the way we do, as a beguiling inner voice urging us to take the easy way instead of the best way, rationalizing wrong into right, even finding biblical support for evil and greed?
We could spend weeks on the fighting temptations themselves. A lot of ink has been spilled interpreting their significance. I find interesting the ways these three temptations were unique to Jesus' divine powers and Messianic call. Like the story of Abraham's test in Genesis 22 where God tells Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, it is finally God who is tested here. Will God go through with the plan? Can we trust God to be faithful to all the promises on which we rely?
But just as important is the way in which Jesus' temptations are common to us all. Oh, I know you and I can't turn stones into bread, although I once turned bread into stone when I overheated it in the microwave… you couldn't break with a chisel. We can't broker world dominion or get angels to protect us from the inevitable power of gravity pulling us toward the grave. But there is a level at which these temptations are not unique, but typical, and I would add timely to us.
I think in our time we are tempted to offer stones instead of bread to the poor and hungry of the world. And our nation, like every world power before it, is tempted to seek domination by violence and mistake peace with empire, to make our quest for wealth and power sound like God's own plan. Even the church is tempted to reach people by entertainment and spectacle instead of making the true call to the life of the Spirit. We are tempted to substitute what feels good at the moment for what is good and true and life-giving. In short, I see these classical tests as the temptation to substitute God's values with the values of the world, to take spiritual shortcuts, to settle with mediocrity, and to avoid suffering at any price. Any of these is no less than a selfish denial of God's call and just plain bad faith.
So many people these days will tell you they're not religious, but they are spiritual. Press them a little, and you find a vague non-committed spirituality, that requires nothing of them and does nothing for anyone else. It's a self-help program they don't have to work at much. They take historic practices of different world religions - mediation, chanting, fasting, styles of prayer, physical disciplines, and so on - divorce them from the rooted context of belief, community, and tradition to apply them as a self-focused personal improvement program. But any true spiritual practice grows us beyond just taking care of ourselves and puts the wider world on our hearts the way the world is on God's heart. This kind of spirituality never builds hospitals or feeds the hungry; it only helps one person feel better for a while about his or her life.
These temptations Jesus endured sound like the supreme values of our own time. "Who says you can't have it all?" "Go for the gusto!" "Why wait?" Wealth, power, and domination: those may be the core values of our culture, but they aren't the core values of Christ. And I understand the pull. But if wealth, power, and domination are your goals, find another religion. That's not Christianity. Besides, when you try to put Christ in service of greed and empire, you pervert the faith and slow down your true quest. If that's what really matters to you, go for it, and see what you have in the end. Christianity is about love, community, and sharing. It's about everyone having enough and all the world living in freedom, justice, and peace. It is about you becoming all you can be, but that means wanting everyone else to be all they can be, too, and helping them get there.
Of course, the greatest evil of all is the way we are misled to go for the right goals in the wrong way, to take every shortcut we can, to let the ends justify the means. I like speed myself. Fast food. Fast cars. Instant gratification. I like quick meetings and I used to like roller coaster rides. I find myself standing in front of that microwave sometime and thinking “hurry!” There is so much life I want to experience and time is so short, why waste time waiting around? Of course, I have no use for short sermons, but that's because it takes longer to write one. Like anybody else, I want to enjoy the rewards of life as quickly as possible, if possible, without making any effort.
Grace abounds. You don't have to do anything to be beloved of God. But becoming an authentic person, mining the depths of your life, calls for some effort. Grace is the gift of a new beginning. Grace is the possibility of finding your destiny. Grace is the invitation to make the journey of the spirit. But there is no such thing as a spiritual shortcut on the path. You can't grow a soul in the hothouse of creature comforts. You can't become a person of deep prayer and enjoy a continuing sense of the nearness of God unless you pray and pray and pray until prayer becomes a part of who you are. You can't be a student of scripture if you don't study. You can't make a difference in the world if you won't engage it, see what's happening around you, find some way to serve. And you can't grow as a person if you aren't willing to enter your suffering as a human being and learn from it.
Life will bring you into the
wilderness of suffering, and you can put all your energy into escaping it
or you can enter it with God's presence, grow through it, and overcome it. As
Benjamin Franklin said, "those things that hurt, instruct." Instead of
instantly rushing to medication to deal with our depression or anxiety, first
we should ask why we are anxious or depressed. Instead of medicating our pain
with alcohol or drugs or food or mindless entertainment, we should ask why we
are hurting and how we might change to overcome it. Instead of blaming others
for our problems, we should ask what can I learn here?
How am I at fault? How might I change by overcoming or enduring this? The
temptation is strong when you are in the wilderness to take the easiest way
out, and often we succumb. Writes Barbara Brown
That hollowness we sometimes feel is not a sign of something gone wrong. It is the holy of holies inside of us, the uncluttered throne room of the Lord our God. Nothing on earth can fill it, but that does not stop us from trying. Whenever we start feeling too empty inside, we stick our pacifiers into our mouths and suck for all we are worth. They do not nourish us, but at least they plug the hole.
I think we are tempted to read the story of Jesus' temptations as a kind of hero story…that it simply shows that God is stronger than evil, but it has nothing to do with us. But I think Jesus was tempted as we are, to use Paul's language. He was tempted as we are, at the point of his deepest needs and highest aspirations. He was tempted as we are, in a time of loneliness and uncertainty. He was tempted as we are, to take the easy way out, to avoid the discipline of the harder way, to accept less because it is more easily available. He was tempted as we are, to give up on God by giving up on himself. So many people settle for less in life than what God offers them because they lose courage, they lose discipline, they lose faith. But it is never too late to start the journey again. That's grace.
Jesus overcame temptation by quoting scripture, which was about having a sound theology and understanding what God is about. He overcame because he was centered on the presence of God and engaged the world out of that center. He overcame temptation because he kept perspective; he refused to go for the short gain at the cost of the long goal. How many of our temptations look good in the moment because we lose sight of who we are, whose we are, where we really want to go?
Like Jesus, with Jesus, we are making a spiritual journey of forty days and forty nights called Lent. It is a kind of intentional journey to the wilderness. It is a time to set aside distractions and do our soul work. Look at your life. What are you lacking? Look at your life. What excess baggage are you carrying that only weighs you down. Look at your life. Where have you settled for less because you lacked the courage, the discipline, the faith to be more? Isn't it time for a change? Don't try to do it all at once. You won't get there overnight, and not even in forty days. But change one thing. Start praying every day. Turn off the television and talk with your family about what means the most to them. Call a different friend every day just to see what's happening in his or her life. Ask them if you can pray for them about anything. Take some walks and talk things over with God. Make yourself do it, with God's help, even if it’s hard, even if it means some self-denial for a change. I promise, you'll notice the difference.
We are each of us tempted, every day, to be less than God made us to be. This is the season when God calls each of us to be more, to become ourselves, to live fully and courageously by the grace of God. If we are following Christ, we need to follow him into that wilderness of self-denial, too.
May we pray?
In this season of heightened spiritual awareness, O God, show us what is best and give us faith to resist the temptation to settle for less. Amen.
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa