iStock #505950799, by stellalevi, Used by permission
On the first Sunday of Lent, we begin a journey that harkens back to Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness after his baptism. The number 40 shows up throughout scripture – Noah spends 40 days in the ark during the flood epic; the Israelites spend 40 years wandering in the desert in the Hebrew scriptures; Jesus spends 40 days in the desert in a period typically understood as his preparation for ministry.
Lent began to be observed as early as a few hundred years after Jesus’ death, when Christ communities began to feel the importance of setting aside a time of deepening spiritual practice in the period leading up to Easter. It’s traditionally been a time of solemn reflection and contemplation, an invitation to different rhythms of life offered by the church calendar. Lent offers us an opportunity to pause.
Which is interesting, because this pause happens in a relatively inhospitable place. If I’m seeking to deepen my spirituality or take some time to myself, the first thing I think of is something like a yoga retreat, or a beach vacation! Taking extra time in a relatively inhospitable environment isn’t usually my first choice!
As I was reflecting on this, I noticed something in the passage I hadn’t before. Jesus is tempted after his 40 days in the wilderness. So, maybe he spent even more time in the desert than we traditionally think of? But in any case, this time of temptation comes on the heels of his deepened spiritual practice.
When we read this passage, we may be drawn to focus on how hard it would be to, say, resist food after 40 days of fasting. Which it would be! And, Jesus has been fortifying himself with time alone with creation, God, the cosmos, himself.
Perhaps this is what enables him to stay in the desert when he faces temptation, to not take the "easy" outs that are offered to him. This staying piece is what I really want us to unpack this morning. It would also have been "easy" (on the surface) to just give up, to throw himself down as he's invited to do, and get out of the current situation
Now we can imagine, from what we know from how stories unfold, that taking that option would in fact not have been a simple solution! But it's presented as an opportunity to exit the work and solve the problem another way. And Jesus says no to all these fixes and possible distractions.
As we consider what it looks like to stay – to walk through – a difficult situation, I think we can actually relate to this.
On its surface, resisting food after fasting, or resisting power after feeling powerless for so long can feel so lofty and aspirational, but I'm going to guess that many of us know what it's like to consciously choose something difficult because we know that anything else is not a true solution. What Jesus does in this choosing to stay in the wilderness may sound fantastical, but boiled down to its essence, it's not that hard to understand. It might be hard to do in practice, but we can understand the need to do it! There are no quick fixes, are rarely are there easy solutions. This practice of life presents us with wildernesses, and we must work through them.
Jesus refusal of so-called easy outs, and his commitment to working through these wilderness moments highlight a three things I want to lift up.
First: Wilderness is a place of possibility
Perhaps the most pronounced place we see this is in the journey to get to the "promised land." Like I mentioned, in the stories of the Hebrew scriptures, the Israelites spend 40 years wandering the wilderness before entering their proverbial promised land.
I think, too, about the Civil Rights era, and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Mountain Top speech where he says that he’s been to the mountain top to see into the promised land, and even though he might not get there, he believes it’s on the other side of wilderness.
MLK had a clear vision of what was on the other side. Ours may not always be as precise, we may not have perfect clarity around what we're aiming for, and why we're not taking the easy way out. But anytime we face difficulty, we hold in our mind's eye the hope for a new way. We are holding within us what it looks like in our lives and communities, feels like in our bodies.
This hope helps the wilderness time itself become generative, not just because we're holding out for what is on the other side. Not as a fantasy or escapism, but because we are holding on to this vision in the midst of our desert wanderings.
I'm not sure if Jesus knew what truly was ahead of him in his life after he came out of the desert. But from the ways he responds to temptation, we can sense that his wilderness experience has enabled him to hold a vision for what he believes is possible.
Wilderness is a place of imagining what is possible – both for what is to come on the other side, and that sustains us in the work of the journey.
Second, Jesus' time in the desert invites us to imagine wilderness as alternative refuge. There are many ways that we get to wilderness. Some are of our own making. Sometimes we find ourselves pushed there little by little. Sometimes it seems we blink and – there we are. Jesus seems in this passage to choose to go there.
But however we get to it, there is refuge to be found there. It may not be a spa retreat, or a beach, or what I traditionally think of as life-giving! But that doesn't mean life isn't there. Jesus retreats to deepen his spiritual practice there, and so he meets us in the wilderness ... however we've ended up there.
The African American tradition took this idea profoundly to heart. There's a spiritual that talks about this, about the wilderness being this place of refuge. It says, if you want to find Jesus, go to the wilderness. Interestingly, part of the spiritual is a Methodist hymn that originally stated: ain't I glad I got out of the wilderness. This community is lifting up an alternate reading of wilderness as a place where we meet Jesus because Jesus himself chooses to stay.
This leads me to the third thing I think we can further reflect on, and perhaps even advance from what is offered in the Biblical text. That is: Wilderness can be a communal experience
Jesus' example offers one way to enter into the wilderness. He goes into the desert alone, for a time of deepened spiritual connection and practice. And there are certainly instances when we need that alone time. There is power in being comfortable being with yourself, just as you are. And in many ways, staying in the wilderness – growing there, resisting the "quick" fixes –necessitates community.
I need the perspective of others to help me envision wilderness as possibility. I need friends and loved ones in the wilderness with me, for me to see imagine it as a place of refuge. In the last line, we hear that at the end of this period in the desert, "angels" came to wait on Jesus. Even though he journeys into the desert alone, he discovers he is actually accompanied by these angels. In order to be sustained in the wilderness, Jesus needs divine community.
I hope that by reframing our experience of wilderness through this Lenten text, we're able to see our experiences in the desert as ripe with possibility, and perhaps, even as a place of solace and refuge. Whether we choose the wilderness or find ourselves there; whether we are there 40 days or 40 years; it does not have to be a place of barren solitude. Jesus meets us there – and angels walk with us.