A Wilderness Experience First Sunday in Lent

A Wilderness Experience March 1, 2009


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 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.” Mark 1:9-15

Last Wed. We began our forty day journey to the Cross and Empty Tomb of our Lord. Many of our Catholic brothers and sisters will forgo meat on Fridays. At the age of fifteen, my first job was working at Burger King, I remember how many fish sandwiches we sold for lunch on Fridays. Have we domesticated the wilderness experience we are called to during Lent? We are called to remember the personal sacrifices Jesus made in these forty days in the wilderness. It is enough to give up red meat one day a week, or reduce our intake of chocolate.
Leading up to the cross in our chancel, we have draped our prayer flags. We have made commitments to practice acts of sacrificial love during Lent. In our wilderness experiences, we don’t need to worry about wild beasts. Our confrontations with the evil of this world are milder forms of temptation. Very few of us will endure the hungers pangs or sleep without shelter above our heads. How will grow in love and compassion for our brothers and sisters walking through the wilderness right now?
In the Ancient Near East, when you heard the number of forty you knew this was a time of testing. This was not a punishment from God. Rather this was a time of spiritual purification. When Jesus departs into the wilderness for forty days, he is repeating the spiritual pilgrimage of his ancestors. Moses led the people out of captivity into forty years in the wilderness before they reached the promised land. Moses spent forty days and nights on the Mt. Sinai before he delivered the law. Elijah spent forty days on Mt. Horeb. Every time that we are set apart for spiritual formation, God does not abandon us.
God is preparing us for the trials and tribulations that still lay ahead. The path Christ set for us is not always tranquil. Speaking the truth in love and proclaiming the gospel will place us in the wilderness more times than many of us would like to accept as reality. God did not promise us a rose garden. We make sacrifices now for treasures in heaven.
Yes there will be hunger, temptation and wild beasts, but the angels of God are always with us to sustain us. If the very Son of God has to go through his own spiritual preparation, how much more do we? How is the Spirit of God calling us today to take some time in the wilderness. We leave the ways and means of this world to appreciate how God’s voice is speaking to us. We silence the distractions and competing voices, so we can hear the still, small voice that nurtures our souls.
Many of our peers like to see themselves as more spiritual than religious. They say to themselves, “I don’t need to go to church, I can find God in nature, this is where I commune with the Spirit.” Many people no longer see the need to be part of a faith community. God does not send us into the wilderness to just feed our own psychic needs. God gives us Sabbath in the wilderness so we are prepared for the demands of sacrificial love we will share with others when we return. As Westerners, we need to acknowledge our propensity for being self absorbed and accustomed to navel gazing. God sends us into the wilderness as a time of preparation for service.
When I think of Jesus growing hungry in the hot noon days and frigid midnights, I pray for our brothers and sisters throughout the world who live in refugee camps. The violence they had no part in has forced them to flee the life they knew into settlements where life is precarious. Charlie and George spent ten years in Kampala at a Sudanese refugee camp. For twenty years, the Southern Sudanese people fled the conflict zones. This tragedy isn’t over, millions of the people of Darfur, another region of Sudan, have also had to flee the Junjaweed and the Sudanese gunships. When we think of wilderness, our brothers and sisters fleeing the war zone are living it.
It’s hard to embrace this spiritual sacrifice of self denial when you are struggling for your daily bread. At times, it can be hard to find God’s presence with you, when the wild beasts surrounding you are fellow human beings. Their acts of evil and cruelty create a crisis of faith. The refugees of our day living in exile are searching and praying every day for the angels to tend to them in their wilderness. Our prayers are with the people of Darfur and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as they endure a harsh wilderness journey they never chose for themselves. May the angels tend to them, and the day of peace and prosperity come soon.
God has given each of us our own time in the wilderness to prepare us to be the angels God sends out to tend to others. Every one of us will encounter a wilderness experience. It’s part of the journey. Yes there will always be testimonies of someone who has had it more difficult than we have. One of the redeeming points is that these experiences of self denial enable us to have compassion and solidarity with others, who currently endure a wilderness moment. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness, hungry, tired and tempted. Our Lord knows our struggle to keep perspective and to restrain from our temptations to give into our baser natures.
When we have our dark nights of the soul, when we feel God is far from us, we can take comfort in remembering that God gave the Israelites manna from heaven, God gave Elijah the food to sustain them. God does not send us out into this wilderness to fend for ourselves. Rather, we are taught again and again, we need to step out on faith and trust God will provide. Many of our brothers and sisters throughout the world are praying and trusting that God has not forgetten them. May of our acts of sacrificial of love during these forty days be answered prayers for those enduring wilderness moments.
In many cultures young men are sent out on a vision quest as part of their initiation into adulthood. Native Americans here in North America and many tribes in Africa still practice this rite of passage. Jesus, has also modelled this path of spiritual maturity. Sometimes we need to descend to ascend. To grow in mind and spirit, we let go of some of the comforts that have become crutches and chains holding us back. We step out on faith and struggle with the elements to learn and trust that God will always provide.
We grow in the image of Christ when we get of ourselves and the comforts that serve as substitutes for the spiritual food only God can provide. In this Lenten journey, there is manna in the sky awaiting for us. Are we willing to endure the hardships and hunger in order to get to the clouds carrying this for us?
We have begun the Lenten Journey. As we receieve the bread and cup today, we remember how much God loved us. God was willing to lay down his life for us. Somehow red meat or chocolate really seem to pale in comparison. How will we give to others an act of sacrificial love as an act of worship and praise to the Lamb who gave it all for us?
Yes the bunnies, lilies and Easter baskets will come at the end of this wilderness experience, but we need to abstain for a while to appreciate the sweetness of Easter morning. How will we walk with our brothers and sisters through their personal Good Fridays? How will we help sustain one another in the wilderness moments that life brings?
Are we ready to serve as vessels and channels of the peace of Christ in a world filled with wild beasts? We are the people we have been waiting for! Through our acts of sacrificial love this Lent, we are angels tending to fellow spiritual pilgrims enduring their time in the wilderness.
May our eyes always be open, our ears always attentive. The voice of God carries through the cries and tears from the wilderness. May the manna from heaven fall again and again. May the Kingdom of God be proclaimed and be made known in every corner of God’s creation. Soon and very soon, we will complete our journey across this dry and desolate land and rest our weary feet in the still waters and green pastures again.