This past Wednesday we began our forty-day Lenten journey in order to prepare our hearts, minds, and souls for Easter. The forty days of Lent are meant to bring to mind many Biblical stories. One of those stories is the story of Noah and the ark, a short snippet of which we heard just a few minutes ago. We are reminded of those forty days of rain that Noah and his family experienced while on that ark. It is also meant to remind us of the forty days that the Ninevites spent repenting and wearing sackcloth and ashes in the Jonah story that we heard a few weeks ago. It is also meant to recall the forty years that the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness after their escape from Egypt before they made it into the promised land. And most important of all for us, it brings to mind Jesus’s forty days in the desert wilderness as we heard a few minutes ago in our Gospel reading.
This year we heard Mark’s version of the story. Mark’s version is much shorter and much sparser than Matthew or Luke’s versions. Sparse, like the desert that Jesus entered. It only takes Mark two verses to tell the story. Matthew and Luke take six times as long to tell the story. In Mark’s sparseness, some of the wonderful details that we know and love, like the content of those temptations, and the clever dialogue between Jesus and the devil are missing. And yet there are gifts in the sparseness, as well. Sometimes in all the detail we can miss the forest for the trees, as the old saying goes. One of the things that Mark’s telling obviously brings out is where this story takes place in the larger narrative. It allows us to see the forest more easily.
As we heard, the story of the desert wilderness sits between the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry in Galilee. By seeing these surrounding trees, we can see the wilderness experience was a precursor for his Galilean ministry, and a necessary one at that. Whatever happened out there in the desert in facing those temptations was critical for Jesus to be able to do the work he needed to do. Out there in the desert he learned about himself, and he learned how to trust God. And he learned the pitfalls that lay ahead on the journey. The desert experience forged him so that he was ready to start.
We also see that before he went out into the desert Jesus heard those words from God: you are my Son, the Beloved. With you I am well pleased. The desert wilderness is not something that he or we experience because of a lack of love from God, but rather it is God’s love guiding us as we go through it.
A few years ago, Christine Marie preached a Christmas time sermon about belovedness. In it she shared a poem by Jan Richardson entitled “Beloved is Where We Begin.” I have asked her to share that poem with us again today.
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
In your baptism, you were united with Christ in his baptism and became a member of the Body of Christ. In your baptism, those words spoken by God to Jesus were spoken to you: you are beloved by God. We are entering a Lent that perhaps we never ended from last year. But as you do, take this blessing with you. God loves you, and that love of God is with you in all the desert wildernesses that you experience. God’s love is with you in the desert of Lent and in the wilderness of this pandemic. God’s love is with you in the desert of loneliness and depression and anxiety. God’s love is with you in the wilderness when a relationship breaks down, or a job is lost, or a loved one dies. God’s love is with you in the desert of a cancer diagnosis, or a miscarriage, or a car accident. God’s love is with you. God, who is love, is with you and blesses you. Let this truth seep into your heart and guide you through the wilderness. Hear God whisper those words into your ears: you are beloved.
AMEN
