Journey through the Wilderness

1LentB, February 18, 2018 for St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Moses Lake, WA by Annette Fricke

40 days is a long time.  It is not 4 weeks or 28 days.  Nor is it a month.  It is more than a month.  Lent is actually 40 days excluding Sundays. It is no accident that the first Sunday in Lent begins with the story of Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness. Biblically speaking, 40 days does not mean 40 days either.  It means a long time.

Life can feel like 40 days in the wilderness when the journey ahead seems insurmountable.  I have two friends that come to mind when I think of a long time in the wilderness.  One is the sister of a classmate who continues to battle cancer who now is getting surgery for her kidneys.  The other is someone I have never met in person who has decided to change occupational leanings towards Psychology rather than Theology.  I also remember in my prayers the list of people we intentionally pray for each Sunday. We are all wilderness survivors. As I came back from Ritzville to exchange the county vehicle for my own this past Friday, the wind was as strong and cold as it was yesterday.  The tumbleweeds were actively being tossed by the wind every which way onto and out of the fields.  The wind had a way of making them come alive. As I raced from the bottom towards the top of a hill, I saw what looked like the biggest tumbleweed I had ever seen right smack in the middle of the road as though guarding the top of the hill and making it impassable.  It was certainly too big to catch below the undercarriage. My imagination took me far beyond those old western movies, old abandoned towns filled with dust, tumbleweeds, and broken dreams. I think about the hardships that the first settlers faced coming to the land here, then they were real dust bowls, not the fields and irrigation as we see now producing food for many. And I bet the rattlesnakes, coyotes, and wolves were more plentiful.

Before Jesus entered the wilderness with the wild beasts all about, he was baptized and the Spirit descended onto him, like a dove.  It is reminiscent of the story of Noah and the dove, the dove who brings a message of waters receding so that the ark can be put out of commission and never have to be used again to keep him and his family safe.  With Noah and his family, God is somehow looking for a new way to save people, people who are committed to keeping God’s ways.  It won’t be saving us from flooding, or for that matter from fire, or mudslides-- or wind throwing the dust and tumbleweeds around.  God will save us from our self-destructive selves, the selves that think unloving thoughts, the selves that act like wild beasts rather than people enlightened by God’s saving grace.  Some of those beasts meddle in other countries’ governmental business.  Other beasts become so frustrated with their own lives that they take the lives of others. Still, God will strengthen us when we are weak and unable to go it alone.  God knows us, that we struggle every day to live grace-filled lives and to be a blessing to other people, people who struggle as we do. God can help us find solutions to our broken world and broken individual lives.

Notice though, how Mark almost makes it seem that Jesus does not struggle.  He is in the wilderness being temped as we are and yet the focus is that he is with wild beasts and yet the angels wait on him.  It is a picture of harmony, of restoration, similar to when the flood is over and a voice comes from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you, I am well pleased.”  The Spirit is there and it is the Spirit who sends Jesus out into life on earth with confidence that God will accomplish God’s mission of salvation through him.

As we go through the discipline of Lent, however we choose to do that, we can choose to take a break from the “I wants” and the “I needs” and consider how God has blessed us in this life, how God goes with us and sends angels to help us along our way. God can help us to prioritize our lives and resist the temptation to allow distractions to cloud the way of Jesus.  God can help us step out of our selves to help our neighbors just as Jesus did.  We will continue to have our trials and our troubles, but God can help us through them and strengthen our faith.  God can renew us as we remember the waters of baptism and allow God’s Spirit to take ahold of us, that Spirit who promises us life in God, a life where our renewal comes by daily repentance and forgiveness; where our renewal comes when we gather for Eucharist or the coffee hour where we conversate about our week, without fear of judgement.

God does not leave us in the wilderness to fend for ourselves although at times it may feel that way. God helps us to fend off the wild beasts and the tumbleweeds of this life because compared to the life that God gives each of us for the common good, they are nothing at all.  They are nothing because God is here right now, making things right and restoring us to wholeness.  Jesus has accomplished this on the cross, for us, for everybody.  “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” God accepts us as we are. God tells us, “You are my sons and my daughters, I am well pleased with you.” This is our proper focus in life. This is good news.  Go and share it with the whole world.