Jesus In The Wilderness...its About Jesus And You

Every year when we begin the season of Lent….our first Sunday is focused on Jesus in the wilderness….

How do you feel about being in the wilderness?

Some enjoy the wilderness….the smells, its beauty, the wilderness isolation away from traffic and people….

Others can live in the wilderness even amongst a crowd…by isolating themselves….or being isolated and they enjoy it.

Then there are those times in life we find ourselves in the wilderness….

The wilderness doesn't feel too good

We feel alone, life is not going as it should, we feel betrayed or let down, we feel deserted and we are not quite sure what the future holds and we wonder where God is or even worse has God turned against us!!

The problem with the wilderness….even if it appears attractive, in the long term it is not healthy and not where we are meant to be….

There is a story of 8 convicts in Tasmania who escape Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement and find themselves living in the wilderness.

The problem was whilst they thought the wilderness gave them freedom….

They soon found themselves desperate for food

And so what did they do...

Initially they stole some food...but this wasn't enough.

To survive the convicts progressively were killed and eaten until only one convict remained….Alexander Pearce

The wilderness was not a safe or free place….

Now we may not kill someone, when we are in the wilderness

but have you ever acted in a way or done something that looked after yourself because you felt desperate or in the wilderness?

Have you ever been tempted to desert God and His ways because you were in the wilderness or desperate?

Did you ever make an excuse for bad or even illegal behaviour because you felt in the wilderness?

And in the bible the wilderness is not a happy or romantic place to be…

It is often a place where food and water are scarce

Living conditions are harsh

Even getting through the wilderness at times seems to be take a long time

And so people questioned whether God really loves and cares for them

Remember the Israelites on the 40 years of wilderness journey

At one stage…they are fed up with the conditions in the wilderness and want to abandon following Moses and God….to return to being slaves in Egypt

But from the beginning of creation through the ministry of Jesus and the early church we are reminded we are that being in the wilderness is not meant to be permanent...

In fact we are called not to be alone in the wilderness but to be in relationship with others….

Remember the greatest commandment that Jesus shared in his ministry….

Live a life of loving God and loving others as much as you love yourself….

And the whole biblical story is leading us to living in God's promise that there is a future for us him and all other believers in eternity where sin does not exist.

But today’s reading is not first about us….although I will come back to us later….

Today’s Gospel reading is about Jesus and His wilderness experience!!

Now remember Jesus had just been baptised…..you will find this in Luke 3:21-22

And on that occasion all who were present would of heard His Father say ….Jesus is my Son with whom I am well pleased

But then what happens next?

You would expect that His Father would look after him, make sure he is well received and given some prestigious and respectful role in society….

You would expect His Father reveal to everyone that He truly loved Jesus by making life good for Jesus

That’s our expectation that if someone says I like you and respect you, we expect them to at least look after us and give us some special treatment?

But listen again to what actually happens

Reading from Luke 4:1-2

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

Did you hear that?

Jesus didn’t just wander off into the wilderness….

Jesus wasn’t captured and taken into the wilderness…

God’s Spirit led his Son into the wilderness….

and because God’s Spirit is always present God was with him in the wilderness…

This is important to thing to keep in mind not just for Jesus’ story in the wilderness but also for our story….

God is always with us…..even in when we think we are in the wilderness….all alone

One person expressed God’s presence with us even when we don’t realise it in the words of the Footsteps in the sand poem

One night I dreamed a dream.

As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.