The Wilds

 Mark 1:9-15

Jesus is baptized, every year on the first Sunday in Lent, and then he is tempted. So it is important for us to pay attention to what the scripture is saying. Each gospel writer tells it in their own way. For Mark we shouldn't be surprised in the scant description, there is no specific question and answer session with the tempter, and there is an immediacy, which lives in Mark. Jesus was driven, just as Mark's text is driven, we are still in chapter one and he resides with the wild beasts. 

Two things mark death here in this passage. One is Jesus baptism, baptism is a dying to ourselves, a being united in Christ's death and then when we come up in the water we are resurrected to a new and different life, one we live for others. The other marker is being with the wild beasts. Now we have stories in the Old Testament of the shepherd David killing these, lion and bear. This is not some gentle animal, these are animals meant to awaken the imagination and to take us to the edge of death.

Why are we taken here? What are we to gain from being so naked and vulnerable in the wilderness? I think some of it relates to the image of baptism, but I also think it speaks to our own Christian life. When we come close to death we realize more of what is important, what resonates truer and deeper. Think about what this whole past year has done living in this time of pandemic. Are there people you hadn't reached out to in a while and you are making contact? Have you spent time getting in touch with loved ones more often? Has this not made our community more solid?

In the ancient world death was a very present part of life. Living into the ways Jesus taught, these kingdom of heaven ways, gospel good news ways brings people closer to death. The Roman state didn't want people who were conquered to think of others. Their extended empire flourished on fear and keeping people thinking only about themselves. This way they could keep exerting control, through a constant fear of execution and death, of the conquered places far from the center of Rome. The thing is the Jewish people are a people of hardship and dying for beliefs. Out of this comes Jesus who knows what the right ways are, the way of listening to God.

For every hardship though there is a story of provision and saving from death. Whether it is journeying from slavery in Egypt to a promised land or today's story of the flood and the rainbow, God is always there providing the way forward for the lost. Jesus is not different from this message of provision and saving help. It rings true with all the things we know about ourselves and our relation to God. We think we know best and we take off on our own way, then when we surrender we see the places where God provides. 

Manna, quail, water for all the complaints of the Hebrew people in the wilderness when they told Moses all he had done was to bring them to the wilderness to die. Wrestling for a whole night with death and the prospect of meeting the brother he had stolen the family fortune from for Jacob and then meeting his brother in the morning to find reconciliation and peace. The stories go on and on. The Psalmist even accuses God of wanting his death, and yet the person finds ways to praise and tell of God's love and provision as well.

Death and life. All edges of where we meet God in Christ. Think about why you follow Jesus. What is it that makes the difference in following him. For me it has been this edge, of losing life to gain it all. Time and again I am brought to the places where I have to die to myself once again. Surrender it all to Jesus and find the life which brings life to the world. Not my own idea, not my own way, but the way in which God sees the world. Jesus gives us this picture as we follow the story in the days ahead of what it means to be brought to these edges once again. The only way we can find our way is to go to the wilderness and find this edge.

We have been in the wilderness for only one year now. Think of it 40 years in the desert trying to get to a land of promise. The 40 years in slavery in Babylon until they could return to a destroyed Jerusalem to rebuild. The 40 days Jesus spend fasting and praying are just a symbol of this. Can we find our way to surrender to the way Jesus wants us to walk? They are after all the way of God come down as an example in Jesus. They think not of themselves, but of the others lost, forgotten, weary, and frowned on while they join hands with the rich and powerful to ask the question, where is God in these? Brought to the edge of surrender once again.