Making it Through the Wilderness

Genesis 9:8-17    Mark 1:9-15

First Sunday in Lent    March 1, 2009

What does it take to make it through the wilderness?  How do you prepare for such a trip, and, more to the point, how do you ensure that you will survive?  Well, first of all, it depends on the kind of wilderness you are entering into.  What kind of conditions shape the place where you will be?  What sort of dangers lurk there?  Is it hot or cold, dry or wet?  The more you know about the place where you are heading, the better your chances of surviving.  Some people have a real appreciation for being in the out of doors no matter what the season.  They thrive on testing themselves with activities such as winter camping during which they will hike and sleep outside despite the fact that temperatures may plummet below zero.  My daughter, Sarah, has taken several winter camping trips and laughs about how her friend dealt with her freezing toes by asking Sarah to warm them on her belly, and about the nights that are so cold it is common practice to use two sleeping bags at once and sometimes it even gets cold enough that you have to pull a friend into your doubled-up sleeping bag to keep one another warm.  Sitting around the campfire wasn’t just a pleasant activity, it was the only way to stay warm.  When I asked Sarah about pointers she thinks are important if one is planning a trip like this, she said it really helps to know what kind of conditions you will encounter so that you can plan for them.

Something that I am very aware of, is that Jesus was not given any warning about the fact that he would be spending time out in the wilderness.  He had no time to plan or prepare, unless you want to count his entire life up until that point as being a time of preparation for this test.  Right after his baptism - a wonderfully high moment in his life - he was pushed out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit.  Quite often our own encounters with the wilderness is like this; it is something that we are not able to really plan for.  We don’t know the wilderness is coming.  As we stand on the edge of it, we don’t have any idea what might be required of us.  All we know is that one moment we are standing on solid ground.  We know who we are and where we are going.  We have our priorities all figured out and live by them as best we can.  We assume that we can count on certain things staying the same forever.  But in the next moment absolutely everything is shaken up and turned upside-down and inside out, and we don’t know anything anymore.  As a child, I remember traveling across the country with my family.  We were driving in one of those old station wagons, with all of us kids piled in the back rolling around, playing card games and laughing over nothing.  The car was pulling a Starcraft tent trailer, and when we approached the edge of a desert out West, my Dad said we would not be able to use the air conditioner because it would make the car work too hard, and it was going to be tricky enough to get across the desert without pushing it.  It was hotter than any heat I had ever felt up until then or since, and we had to roll down the windows and let it in.  We were poised on the edge of the wilderness, and had to do all we could to ensure that we didn’t get stuck there.  We had the luxury of knowing what we were facing, but more often you don’t know when the wilderness is coming.  You don’t realize that you are poised on the edge of catastrophe, and that the only thing between you and that wilderness is a phone call, a test result or a difficult conversation.

Our entry ticket into the wilderness can be a life threatening illness - our own, or that of someone close to us.  It can be loss of a job that has been our bread and butter as well as a large part of our self-definition.  We can find ourselves in the middle of the wilderness when our marriage falls apart or when we are threatened with the loss of our home.  There are so many things that can catapult us right into the thick of it, and many of them are things that we never see coming until they are right there staring us in the face.  

As we read this morning’s passage from Mark, where the gospel writer doesn’t mince his words at all, but just lays out the bare facts, we can see the swiftness with which Jesus’ banishment into the wilderness happened.  One moment he was soaking in his baptism and God’s strong blessing, and the next he is facing temptation and challenges of all kind in the wilderness.  Jesus’ time the wilderness focused on his coming to terms with who he was and with what his mission in life was to be.  Up until this time, he had lived a relatively quiet life, as best we can tell from the scarce records of that time left to us.  He may have worked with his father, Joseph, as a carpenter.  He may have studied as most Jewish men did, in the synagogue, learning the history of the Israelite people and their relationship with their God, Yahweh.  

Lent is a period in which we are intended to follow in Jesus’ footsteps by engaging in prayer and fasting, and sacrifice of different kinds as we give up some of the things we love to indulge in.  This letting go is intended to create room in our lives, and maybe more particularly, in our minds, for us to more actively engage with God.  It is a time when the spiritual aspects of our lives are brought to the forefront so that we might build up our faith and grow stronger in our relationship with the divine.  One colleague of mine, who happened to be serving a large and very active church at the time, asked her congregation to cancel all church meetings for the duration of Lent.  She said she asked this so that there would be more time and space in people’s lives for prayer and contemplation.  In terms of giving up things for Lent, it seems that it could be incredibly useful for us to think twice about what we are doing, to ask ourselves if the activities in which we are engaged are absolutely necessary, or if they might be yet another way of numbing ourselves to God’s presence in our lives?  

Sometimes having God close to us can be difficult.  Sometimes it can make our lives more challenging than the lives of other folks around us, simply because there is so much more for us to consider when making our decisions, so much more for us to contemplate when we do face difficult times.  Wilderness times come to everyone, whether religious or not.  But those of us who are religious, or spiritual, if you prefer, often find that we are challenged by these times not only on the physical level but also on the spiritual level.  We ask why our lives aren’t made easier because of our reliance on the divine, why difficulties still come to us when we are so obviously trusting in God?  When I feel challenged by questions like this, I try to remember that Jesus spent more than his share of time in the wilderness, in prayer and contemplation, trying to sort out his relationship with God and with the people around him.  If even Jesus wasn’t immune from the challenges of life, then maybe I can learn how to deal with them as well.  If Jesus went into the desert and felt alone and separated from God, then maybe it isn’t the end of the world when i feel separated from God as well.

This Lenten time is about separation, about traveling on your own and learning how to make your way through the wilderness.  But ultimately, Lent is also really all about relationship and about our deep connection with God that cannot be broken by anything in this world except our own will.  We are held in Love and in the Light of Christ no matter where we are, no matter what we face.  

God, you are our light, shining the way in the darkness.  You are our guide when we are lost, and our teacher when we don’t understand.  You stand with us through thick and thin, holding us and helping us in ways seen and unseen.  As we walk through whatever wilderness journey we need to undertake, we ask that we might be aware of your love holding us through it all.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.