Jesus’s time in the wilderness reminds us that there is more to our lives than temptation and desire. We are seeking purpose.
living into Lent again
Lent 1B | Mark 1:9-15
I’m not sure if there is a harder working sentence in the gospels than this:
“He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
That’s a lot of stuff in just twenty-three words! The evangelist is telling us so much. But instead of feeling like we know what’s happening, we have more questions.
Why is he out there? Does the Spirit send him to be tempted, or did Satan take advantage of an opportunity? How is he tempted? Is it like freshly baked cookies just sitting there, cooling by the oven temptation or is it come eat these cookies, you know you want them temptation?
Of course the gospels of Matthew and Luke flesh out this temptation a bit more. So we certainly could indulge our curiosity a moment to remember they describe a temptation that was clearly of the manipulative variety.
In those other gospels, Satan offers ultimate power and freedom to Jesus. Two things that don’t actually seem to move Jesus much at all. Perhaps this isn’t something Satan can actually offer. Nor is it something Jesus can claim for himself.
I’m drawn to the temptation stories as depicted in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. They illustrate that Jesus didn’t come to exercise power, but to resist it. And he doesn’t claim freedom for himself, but ensures the freedom of others. The whole thing comes off less like a story of temptation but of resistance.
Mark is being matter-of-fact.
For our reading today, the temptation only exists in the statement that it happened. That he is out in the wilderness for forty days. And it is out there that he is “tempted by Satan”.
The vagueness leads to curiosity. I’m not sure we’re supposed to know the quality of the temptation at all. It isn’t clear if it is like Matthew and Luke tell it: the sudden appearance of the Adversary and then just as sudden, his disappearance. Or is he tempted for five straight weeks? And how intense is it?
I can’t help but think that parallel to our own forty days of Lenten fasting is illuminating.
We are invited to spend forty days in a kind of wilderness. Not forty days of temptation or forty days of resistance. Just forty days away from our comfort zone.
When it comes to Lent, I think we oversell temptation.
The time I gave up sweetener for Lent wasn’t forty days of constant torture. It was a few days of mild frustration and a couple of mornings of getting used to drinking hot black coffee. It was uncomfortable for sure. But it wasn’t 40 days, 960 hours, 57,600 minutes of resisting temptation. Honestly, I wasn’t really ever tempted.
Temptation was only ever part of the experience. It didn’t govern it.
Jesus wasn’t really tempted because power is only ever part of the experience. He couldn’t be the Messiah and fully succumb to that temptation. Not because people can’t succumb, but because the Messiah’s priority is not gaining power.
I don’t think Jesus is tempted because Satan doesn’t offer anything Jesus wants.
With Him In the Wilderness
Because we are so geared toward the temptation, we ignore the rest of the sentence. How Jesus spends the rest of his time in the wilderness. Perhaps we might draw the conclusion that we are more prone to temptation than Jesus is.
We do obsess about power, capacity, authority, and control. We want to know about Jesus and temptation in much the same way that we want to know the metaphysics of Jesus’s relationship to power. We’re curious.
And yet we seem strangely indifferent to his being “with the wild beasts”. As if this has no implication or reflection on Jesus’s power.
The Evangelist we know as Mark doesn’t throw away words or give us flowery background. It’s tempting to read this as a reminder of the wilderness—like background for the scene. Another way of saying the temptation is the most important part.
But Jesus is in the wilderness. Like a cleanse, a retreat. He is out there in the wilderness and among creation. This isn’t setting, it is part of the plot.
We will see later that Jesus is the one who can command storms. He multiplies food. He heals the sick and commands demons.
Jesus is among the wild beasts, not fighting them or running from them. He is not an adversary to them. He isn’t a rancher slaughtering wolves like a pest in a never-ending territorial dispute.
Jesus is a wild beast.
Angels waited on him
“and the angels waited on him.”
From our temptation-centric worldview, we assume this wilderness time is a traumatic trial and when it is over, the angels are there to nurse him back to health.
From our Lordship view of Jesus, we assume the angels wait on him like a king, feeding him grapes as he reclines in comfort.
Both of these are informed by tradition; even as they paint completely different (though ultimately related) versions of the events.
But there’s something we can hear because the English offers it: the angels waited on him. Like I wait on my kids to get in the car. And from here, he gets to work.
The presence of God’s messengers signals that Jesus’ time in the wilderness is finished.
Quarantines
Lent started this week. But perhaps we have been in the wilderness for nearly a year. And for some, perhaps even longer.
And as uncomfortable as it is to be away from home, we need to be uprooted for a time.
Years ago, I read a book for Lent that was aptly titled Quarantine by Jim Crace. It is the story of people who went into the wilderness for a quarantine. The reader only gets a glimpse of a figure we know is Jesus through the eyes of these strangers, trying to make a better go of life for themselves.
They wonder what is going on with him and what has brought him out there. What is he running from?
As much as we keep talking about “getting back”, I wonder what we are actually trying to run toward. What in this wilderness are we trying to escape? What wild things are we refusing to live among?
We have a new insight into quarantines now.
But not only the time apart or away from our normal routines.
Also…being driven into the wilderness.
Or choosing separation.
Making new options.
Learning new methods.
Listening for guidance.
Waiting longer than we want.
Aching for home.
Maybe doing a little cheating.
Resolving to be better.
Taking it all more seriously.
This last year has been uncomfortable for us all. And for some of us, it has been a trial with many temptations.
But perhaps we’ve made too much of the timing: when will it end? Or who we are supposed to be in the end (whether we’ve started a new hobby or perfected a sourdough). We’re living with a pressure to be better than we were…but tied to a fear that we’ll be the same…or worse.
This is the temptation of our quarantine; this Lenten journey in the wilderness. But the temptation doesn’t define the time. A time spent apart. Among the wild beasts and angels.
To learn. Focus. Discover purpose.
And return.
Saying The time is now. The future is here. God’s will is done with us.