Our Wilderness

Mark 1:9-15

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

Lent has begun, and this morning we find Jesus in the gospel of Mark—the sparest of all the gospels—utterly alone. Mark kind of rushes through these huge moments of Jesus’ life, of the beginning of his ministry. Three simple sentences on his baptism, and two on his time being tempted in the desert, two moments that get a lot of more drama and space in Matthew and Luke. But there’s something about the starkness of the gospel of Mark that speaks to the season of Lent—it speaks to this season when we really reflect on our lives and think about repentance, about turning back to acting right, about why we’re here, and what we’re meant to do.

In these three simple sentences about Jesus’ baptism, John is mentioned, as he’s the one doing the baptizing, but no one else is; no one else being baptized, there’s not back and forth with John, it’s just a very simple description of Jesus and God says, “You are my son, with whom I am well pleased, as opposed to “This is my son,” as God says in the Luke. What this says to me is that Jesus is the only one hearing this voice God, that Jesus is alone in this incredible theophany. I imagine the world around him quieting to nothing and Jesus seeing nothing but the dove and hearing nothing but the otherworldly voice of God. And immediately after this happens, Jesus transported, but that same voice that just announced to him his divine parentage and his love for him, drives him into the wilderness to be tested for 40 days. Imagine the emotional whiplash. Imagine the confusion of having this incredible, divine experience, and then immediately having your divinity and your goodness and your willpower tested. And because this is the Gospel of Mark, we don’t even know in what ways he was being tested, we simply know he was in this barren land, full of nothing but beasts and bolstered only by angels in some form.

I can’t help but wonder if the aloneness in this gospel is purposeful, if it’s mean to foreshadow the agony and isolation that awaits Jesus in his passion. I can’t help but wonder if this test, in the wilderness immediately after he is told in no uncertain terms that he is indeed the son of God, that this is representative of the Jesus’ whole life—incredible and beloved but destined for so much pain.

Mark specifically writes that the wilderness is nothing but wild beasts, probably harkening back to the chaos that was the universe before God put everything in its place. The wilderness is a place that is far from God, a place where we can’t feel God, a place where we are separate from God, where we feel separated from the comfort and the love of God.

I have a cousin who is an investigative journalist, and he kind of fell into the world sports journalism, and I remember her saying years ago, that when NFL players retire and enter the real world, it’s described as being in the wilderness. Now, think about the life stories of so many NFL players—scouted since middle school, driven by parents and coaches since before that, being told your whole life that this is what you’re meant to do, that this is your calling, that you were made to do this. And then, imagine you get a career-ending injury; or you’re just simply at the ripe old age of 35 and your body can’t do what it could when you were 23, 24, 25, and you call it a day and you retire. So you’re not even middle aged yet, and all of sudden, after a life of doing nothing but football, you’re faced with this brand new world, and you have to figure out a new calling in life, something new to drive you. No wonder they call it the wilderness. You go from being on a team, surrounded by your peers and coaches and fans cheering you on, to being… what? A normal, private citizen with no built-in supports. Now, you might be rolling your eyes at this, thinking that there’s no reason to feel bad for rich pro-athletes, but the reality is, unless you’re a superstar with endless endorsement deals, it is very easy to blow all that money very quickly—especially if you’ve played in a sport well known for brain-altering concussions. And so about ten years ago, the NFL created something called The Trust, which gives retired players coaching and help as they enter this brave new world.

Calling it that new world the wilderness feels so appropriate, especially in regards to today’s passage, where we have Jesus immediately feeling so close with God, so euphoric, so loved, to all of a sudden, having it all torn away and being driven into nothingness. And then we have going from stadium lights and thousands of fans cheering; going from coaches telling you exactly what plays to run and when, to… essentially nothingness.

And this isn’t just the case for pro-athletes. Over the past decade, problematic alcohol use has skyrocketed among baby boomers—and this isn’t a shot at boomers—this is simply because as many people entered retirement, many all of a sudden had their purpose taken from them. We live in a world that promotes money and status above all else, right? And what do we do for that money and status? We work. We work harder than we probably should. And when our lives have revolved around work, we look for something else to fill our time, or something else to distract us from the constant sensationalist bad news cycle.

In fact, I remember in the brief amount of time I was unemployed after I finished my chaplaincy residency, but before I got my first hospice chaplaincy job, I was deeply depressed. I didn’t drown my sorrows and alcohol, but I became anxious, withdrawn, I didn’t know what to do with myself. It culminated one evening when I met a friend for a beer after a day of doing nothing and I actually fainted at the restaurant we were at. It was embarrassing and probably a result of my anxiety and poor eating habits, but I was in this strange and unfamiliar space, waiting to do what I was called to do, but not yet there.

And these feelings of being untethered, these times of flailing—they don’t have to be job related—it could be any kind of emotional whiplash, really—any bit of sudden bad news, any shock to the system, any injury that prevents us from doing something we love—it can send us into our own personal wildernesses, a place of feeling lost and confused and far from the love of God. I imagine we’ve all been there—when we’re grieving the death of a loved one or the loss of a relationship, or maybe there’s not even an explanation… maybe we’re simply depressed or anxious because that’s the way our brains are wired and we feel like we are wandering in the wilderness with nothing but wild beasts testing and threatening us.

After Jesus concludes his time in the wilderness, Mark writes the John the Baptist was arrested, and we know he was subsequently executed. This is Mark letting us know that a similar fate awaits Jesus. And Jesus knew this all too well, as we will discover over the next few weeks. Jesus knew the fate that awaited him.

But church—we don’t know our fates. We don’t know what our futures hold. There are times in which we will find ourselves in the wilderness, wandering, lost, angry, confused, feeling so far from the love of God, and in those times, and I know this all too well, we will despair, and we will feel absolutely sure that nothing will work out. We will feel absolutely sure that we are doomed. But we can never be sure. And as distant as God can feel sometimes, God is always there.

When Jesus was in the wilderness, it’s written that he had angels attending him. Now this is Mark, so of course we don’t really get any details as to what this means—were they giving him food, moral support, were they just making sure he lived to see his fate? And prophesy played out? We don’t know. But we can of course assume they helped him to get through this 40-day test in some capacity. Last week, in leading up to Lent, I talked about I don’t love the idea of always sacrificing something for Lent, of taking something away, but I like the idea of adding something to our lives—adding some kind of prayer of meditation practice, something healthy to our lives instead of just taking away chocolate or chips. And so I wonder if, as we begin this year’s Lenten journey, if we can think of what we can add to our lives that can bolster our spirits during difficult times. I wonder if we can add people, if we can add a practice, if we can add some kind of support to our lives. I wonder if, when we feel we’re surrounded by nothing but wild beasts intent on destruction, if we can summon these angels.

I think sometimes it’s hard for those of us who grew up in this mainline Protestant tradition to hear talk of angels or imagine these glowing white beings— it’s certainly not something we put a lot of emphasis on. But it’s believed that angels are simply messengers of God. They are couriers of divine information. When Jesus was in the wilderness, I wonder if the angels attending to him were simply relaying messages of hope, of assurance that this would all be worth it. And so with this in mind, I think the angels that we can conjure in our lives can be anything that buoys us in times of uncertainty. It can be something as tangible as a trusted therapist, a beloved pet, or a medication that keeps us going or helps us function a little better. It can be something as esoteric as a walk in the woods, a prayer, a song that really speaks to you.

And since we’re talking about adding practices this Lent, I’m also wondering how we can work as angels in the lives of those around us, in this community—how can we bolster and buoy those around us? How can we support one another when it seems like the whole world is this chaotic, ethically barren wilderness, when everything feels fragile and uncertain? How can we work to make this world one where this feeling of despair or isolation is the default? How can be messengers of the Good News in today’s bad-news world?

I’ve talked before about the word “repent,” and how, unfortunately, it has these kind of fire-and-brimstone connotations these days. But remember, it simply means turning back towards God; turning back towards acting right.

In our passage today, Jesus returns from this journey of emotional whiplash— from being told by God that God is well-pleased with him, his beloved and only son, to being driven into the wilderness, and now, back to civilization where he realizes his cousin John has been arrested, showing the danger he is walking back into—and he knows the time is now, for people to turn back to the Good News—the Good News of the unconditional Love of God.

The time is always now to turn back to that unconditional Love; to feel it and to show it. The whole world feels like a precarious and unlivable wilderness these days. And so for these next forty days and beyond, let’s face that, let’s recognize it, and let’s not get lost in it. We will listen to the angels in our lives encouraging us to keep going; and we will act as angels ourselves, being messengers of that Good News of Love to those all those who find themselves feeling isolated from community, from support, from God. And we will turn this wilderness we’re living in into an earth as it is in heaven. Amen.