Lent I - Skip Windsor

Mark 1:9-15

“Into the Wilderness”

Someone once wrote, “The desert does not allow any compromise.”

Spending a weekend in Death Valley, California, a number of years ago, I came to know that unvarnished truth. I was part of the leadership team of A Christian Ministry in the National Parks. We were staying at an idyllic place called the Furnace Creek Inn that serves as an oasis in the middle of the desert. Surrounded by palm trees, a swimming pool, and all the privileges of a luxury hotel, it is easy to forget that miles of desolate wilderness surrounded you.

I decided one morning to take a hike outside the Inn’s confines and walk out into the desert having seen a small escarpment that appeared not too far away. Its odd outcropping seemed to beckon me. Prepared with hiking boots on and a canteen of water, I felt ready go into the desert. What I did not realize was that my destination was further away than I thought. By the time I reached the escarpment the sun was high, my feet were sore, and my canteen was nearly empty. I was only halfway home. As I rested in a sliver of shade the wall of the escarpment gave me, I thought about how unforgiving the desert can be. What if I sprained or twisted an ankle? What if I got lost and could not find my way back to the Inn? What if I had to survive here?

For a moment the beautiful but unforgiving landscape matched the encroaching desolation I felt inside me. Fortunately, I saw one of the other ministers walking about halfway back to the Inn and I made a bolt for him hoping he carried enough water for the two of us. Mercifully, he did and we walked back to the Inn together with him giving me some sage advice about desert living. That was the day, I came to realize in a very personal way the desert does not compromise.

What does the desert look like to you?

I made a pastoral visit to an old friend of mine several weeks ago who has severe MS. Each movement is a struggle. Each word he speaks must be squeezed out of him. I know a son who grieves for the loss of his mother who recently died. He cannot stop crying. There is a couple I know from my graduate school days that are separating. There is anger, guilt, and remorse. There are still others dealing with aging, loss of sight, physical impairment, arthritis, and soreness. And there are others who are souls coping with mental illness, depression and isolation.

What does your desert look like?

Elizabeth Hamilton, the biographer of Charles de Foucauld the famous Desert Monk, writes,

“The desert is a place where the soul encounters God, but is also a place of extreme desolation – a place of testing, where the soul is flung upon its own resources and therefore upon God. The desert, in this sense, can be anywhere.” ⁽¹⁾

In today’s Gospel reading from Mark, there is a quick succession of events: Jesus is baptized. He is named the beloved Son of God. No sooner is Jesus anointed then he is immediately cast into the wilderness of the desert and tested. After ascending the dizzying heights of baptism, Jesus is plucked and placed in the midst of a diverse group of desert denizens including wild beasts, spirits, angels and, of course, the Tempter, Satan.

Joyce Rupp in her book God’s Enduring Presence writes,

“Jesus did not decide on his own to go into the desert. He was led there by the Spirit. Jesus would probably not have chosen to go there any more than any of us would choose to enter into an extended time of struggle. Yet in those challenging forty days Jesus experienced his inner strength and found a clear direction for his future ministry…”

Rupp continues,

“I can’t imagine any of us liking our own deserts, the parts of our life we want to get rid of as fast as we can: disagreeable relationships, ongoing illness, unsatisfying work, troubling questions about religious beliefs… anything that snatches us from a contented life. We tend to think our desert places are bad places, but could it be the Spirit leads us there to help us know ourselves better? Could it be that our deserts are the very place where we meet our spiritual power, where our faith is strengthened, and the assurance is given that we can, as Jesus did, deliberately choose good in the face of temptation and conflict?” ⁽²⁾

It is said that God takes us places we never thought we would go. It is also true that God takes us places that we thought we would never go. We can learn from Jesus’ experience in the desert. He did not go there alone. He was supported by his relationship his Father through the spirit. Not that it was easy. This does mean that he was immune from the trials and terrors of life: but the Spirit sustained him. He was never alone. It was to this relationship that Jesus clung.

Physical pain, mental pain, prejudice and conflict isolate. It is like being in the wilderness. One feels cut off from family and friends, from one’s community and even from one’s own spirit. In Jesus’ public ministry, he sought to reverse this. Jesus heals a leper cut off from his community, welcomes a tax collector into his inner circle, and gives sight to a blind man by a pool in Bethsaida.

Jesus draws people out of exile and alienation into community; and having been tested himself in the desert, he gives us the comfort that we are never ever alone. Through the Holy Spirit, you and I are assured in faith, that we always have the companionship of the risen Christ in us and with us.

In Lent, among the companions I turn to for support and strength is the 20^th century French priest, monk and mystic, Charles de Foucauld whom some have called the unknown disciple of Christ.

He led an active life as a monk and priest but was given permission to dwell as hermit in the Sahara Desert and lived among the Touregs a desert tribal people. His desert experience of solitude, testing and encounter captures the essence of the wilderness experience.

He once said of himself, “I am a monk not a missionary. I am made for silence and not for speech.” The desert became for him his home, his office, and his church. There Pere Charles encountered God and expressed his faith in simple ways of hospitality and charity. Reflecting upon Jesus’ temptation and trials in the desert, he writes,

“Was this 40 day fast a miracle or an example of faith with which we must devote ourselves to penitence counting on God to support us? It seems that Our lord did it to convince us of the strengths we can find within ourselves when, by putting faith in God, we devote ourselves with faith to the fulfillment of everything he asks of us, as impossible as it might seem. The great, divine feat here is faith, trust in God, courage – and not the fasting.” ⁽³⁾

Where did the desert lead Jesus? The evangelist Mark tells us that Jesus left the desert to preach the Good News of the Gospel message. His public ministry begins to call, proclaim, minister and to heal. He is the beloved. He is the one who survived the wilderness. He knows the manner in which God called him and now the victory he would claim would be one that is shared by all people for all time.

What does your desert look like this Lent? What companions are there with you? Who will you companion through their desert? Lent can serve as a wilderness time for us all to seek and discern, to find solitude and silence, to engage where your strengths lie, and to be transfigured by the Presence of the One who says, “You are my child, the beloved of God.”

Let us pray:

Spirit of God, I will go into the wilderness of my life and trust you are there.  Amen.
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1. The Desert: An Anthology for Lent, p. 26
2. God’s Enduring Presence, p. 22
3. Scriptural Meditations of Faith, p. 47