I am not a camper. My idea of camping is a Motel 6; there is plenty of adventure to be had there. And yet, I still think that the wilderness gets a bad wrap. Now I understand that we just heard the story of what caused humanity to be removed from the Garden of Eden into THE WILDERNESS, but still, I think the wilderness gets picked on. When we associate it with religion it automatically becomes a place where the lost are doomed to wander or where the sinful are sent for punishment. But neither of those explanations seems to make sense as we encounter Jesus being LED by the Spirit from the Jordan River to the wilderness. He didn’t eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He didn’t grumble against God for only feeding him Manna. No, he has just been baptized by John with all the pageantry that went along with it. The same Spirit who leads him to the wilderness had just recently descended upon him like a dove. This trip to the wilderness can not be as bad as we assume it to be.
And yet, as we read on it almost sounds like it is worse than we think. No, he wasn’t being punished. No he wasn’t lost. But the Spirit led him to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil?!? Maybe trips to the wilderness are THAT BAD. As we look through the Scriptures, however, we see that trips to the wilderness are meant to teach, not to punish. The wilderness is where the faithful are prepared. The wilderness is where God’s people await God’s will. The wilderness is where God’s mercy and love are made known.[1] And this trip is no different. It isn’t as bad as it seems; it is instead an opportunity to see if the time is right; to make sure that Jesus has been fully prepared for the ministry to which he has been called. It is a test – the same Greek words as tempt – of his readiness to begin his journey toward Jerusalem and ultimately the cross.
And while it did not begin this way, Lent has become for us a similar time in the wilderness. The Spirit may not lead us there to be tempted by the devil, but the Church calls us to the wilderness for a period of testing; not to prove ourselves worthy of God’s love or even as a sort-of “self-help” retreat, but instead to bring our lives back into shape – to turn back toward God – to deepen our relationship with Jesus as we walk with him on that road to Jerusalem. We can look at Lent through the same negative lens that we see the wilderness. We can hem and haw about how the hymns are hard to sing. We can moan and groan about how guilty it makes us feel. Or, we can look at it in a positive light. We can take to heart the opening words of the prayer for absolution at the end of the Ash Wednesday liturgy, that “Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, desires NOT the death of sinners, but rather that they may turn from their wickedness and live…” Despite what the Great Litany sounds like, Lent is not a time to be spent depressed while we beat ourselves over the head for all the ways we screw up. Instead it is a chance to re-evaluate and re-turn to God, with our wickedness and all. It is a time in the wilderness for preparation, for waiting, and for trusting. It is ultimately a time in which we are made ready for the great celebration of the Resurrection.
As with all periods of preparation in our lives it requires some testing (or tempting – depending on how you translate your Greek). Our churchmanship is tested in hymns that can be tough to sing; will we come back next Sunday and try again? Our personal piety is tested as we add or subtract something from our lives; is it worth no chocolate or the extra time spent in Bible study? Our mettle is tested; are we up to the task of self-examination and when done are we capable of standing before God sinners that we are? Lent is not easy, but Lent is not as bad as we make it out to be.
We return to Matthew’s gospel. The wilderness, we have seen, is not as bad as we assume it to be. And 40 days, well 40 days is what marks this event as special. “Forty: the days and nights that Noah and his family endured the deluge on board the ark, after which God made a covenant never again to destroy the earth with a flood (Gen 7:4, 12; 8:6; 9:8-17). Forty: the days and nights Moses fasted on Mount Sinai as he inscribed the words of God's covenant for the Israelites (Exod 24:18; 34:27-28; Deut 9:9). Forty: the days and nights Elijah fasted in the desert before receiving a new commission from God (1 Kgs 19:8). Forty: the years the Israelites wandered the wilderness in preparation for their arrival in the Promised Land (e.g., Exod 16:35; Deut 2:7).”[2] It is not an arbitrary number of days that Jesus is in the wilderness, but a very intentional one. Forty is a number well known to the Israelite community; so forty is the number of days and nights that Jesus must spend fasting like Elijah, alone like Moses on Mount Sinai, utterly dependant on God like Noah and his family. Forty. Not thirty-nine. Not fifteen. Forty. God didn’t look down and see his only son famished on day twelve and say, “ok, that’s good.” No, it had to be forty. God himself couldn’t cut it short. These forty days were important. Without these forty days the rest of Jesus’ ministry is impossible. Jesus must be sure that he is ready for the challenges ahead; and forty days were needed.
So too, forty days in Lent is an intentional time period. We start on a Wednesday to get the full 40 days in. But, “How often do we try to hurry through Lent?”[3] How many of us drop our Lenten fasts like our New Year’s resolutions? How many of us long for the Sunday feast day to come so that we have an excuse to eat our chocolate or skip our meditations? I do. I’ll admit it. I gave up contempt for Lent this year, and for me, that is really hard. I’d love to hit up Wal*Mart this afternoon so that I can stand in line and think mean thoughts about the slowest cashier in history, but I need to not take advantage of this feast day. “There is something for all of us in [dwelling] in [the discomfort of our Lenten tests] - that we use just those times to grow spiritually. Self reflection is not nearly so common or so necessary when we are humming along happy that everything is going well. If we don't take some time [say 40 days or so] to reflect that we are dust - then what need would most of us have for a savior - especially one as forgiving as our… God? As uncomfortable as it may be, Lent is the time when most of us are most open to the blinding light of God's love.”[4] And it’ll take all 40 days. God didn’t cut short the testing/tempting of Jesus in the wilderness and neither should we.
This year for Lent, I propose that we look at it with joy. Instead of focusing on what we can’t have and can’t do we can look at what God is doing to restore our relationship with him. Instead of cutting it short because it is just too hard we must hang in there for the full 40 days to give God plenty of time to work. I am not a camper, but this Lent I’m setting up my tent and sitting and waiting. Won’t you join me? Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment