February 18, 2024
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Mark 1:9-15
Detour into a Lonely Place
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
When I was a child, my grandparents always purchased the Reader’s Digest condensed version of books. The hardcover volumes handsomely lined the shelves of their barrister bookcases. Each volume in the series contained abridged versions of several books that were popular at the time of their publication. The condensed volumes allowed someone the ability to absorb several relevant books of the day in a short amount of time.
Mark’s gospel seems like something of an abridged version compared to its siblings Matthew and Luke. Jesus’ baptism gets right down to business. Matthew contains a dialogue between John and Jesus about who should be baptizing whom. But Mark overlooks all of that. When Jesus goes into the wilderness, Matthew and Luke detail the dramatic dialogue between Jesus and Satan. But Mark sums up the entire 40-day period into one sentence.
The first Sunday in Lent always begins with a reflection on Jesus’ 40-day period of temptation in the wilderness. But when we come to the year of Mark, his rendition is so minimal that we need to expand the reading with what happens before and after. Mark gives us the view from 40,000 feet.
Jesus is baptized by John. And as he rises from the water, the Spirit descends upon him. That same Spirit then immediately drives Jesus into the wilderness. And after this retreat, Jesus begins his ministry.
When we see these three actions in such rapid succession, the sequence reveals something pertinent. Why doesn’t Jesus just go straight from his baptism into his ministry? Why does he need to go on this detour into the wilderness before he begins his ministry?
He was anointed by the Holy Spirit, after all! But his baptism and the presence of the Spirit alone aren’t sufficient. Jesus is still missing something, something very critical for him to accomplish his ministry. And what he needs can only be found on this wilderness detour.
If his baptism reveals Jesus’ connection with the divine, then his wilderness wandering reveals his humanity. He’s tested and tempted in every way that we are. If Jesus were to embark on his ministry with only his identification with the divine but not with his humanity, then his ministry would be lopsided. The Spirit knows what Jesus needs, and so it drives Jesus into this detour within the lonely wilderness.
Jesus spends forty days apart in the wilderness. This retreat reflects the forty years Israel spent journeying from slavery in Egypt to settling in the Promised Land. During that time, Israel was tempted – and failed.
• They built and worshiped a golden calf idol.
• They grumbled and complained, wondering why they ever left captivity in Egypt.
• They balked at the prospect of entering the Promised Land, doubting that God would go with them.
Israel faced temptation and failed. But during that journey of failure and disappointment, they also developed a deeper connection with the God who delivered them from slavery.
• When their backs were up against the shores of the Red Sea and the Egyptian army was pursuing them, God created a way when there was no way.
• Faithfully, every morning, God provided bread from heaven.
• The pillar of God’s presence never left them and led them forward.
• They learned to rely on God. In that lonely place, God was all they had. And God was all they needed.
Their 40-year journey was filled with temptation and failure. But it was also a time of intimacy with their God.
Mark tells us the same was true for Jesus’ wilderness detour. Like the Israelites, he, too, was tempted. But in the power of the Spirit, Jesus overcame.
And Mark tells us Jesus also experienced blessing. Jesus was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.
How are the wild things a blessing? There is a peace to the created order. Wild things aren’t weighed down by the daily stresses that we are. Mark includes this small detail to reflect the blessing of creation. Isaiah prophesied of the time when the lion will lie down with the lamb. There is a peacefulness to creation.
The American poet Wendell Berry poignantly describes this in his poem “The Peace of Wild Things.”
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
When Mark tells us that Jesus was with the wild animals, he was referring to this peace of wild things, the peace of God’s creation, following the order and the rhythms appointed to them from on high.
There is a great peace that comes to us from nature. Our lives become so contorted by the many ways we complicate our human journey. Being in the presence of wild things beckons us to return to our roots, to the intentions God had for us when there was only the Garden.
Jesus was with the wild things. And there were also angels, heavenly mediators who interceded on his behalf.
Martin Luther wrote about them in his morning prayer:
We give thanks to you, heavenly Father…that you have protected us through the night from all danger and harm…preserve and keep us, this day also, from all sin and evil…let your holy angels have charge of us, that the wicked one have no power over us.
Only after his detour into the wilderness would Jesus be ready to begin his awesome ministry. It was in the wilderness, as he centered himself with God, as he faced Satan, that he gained the strength and the internal bearing to engage all that his ministry would be.
We’ve now entered our own 40-day period. We call it Lent. I think that Lent often gets a bad rap. We associate it with a time of deprivation. We’re supposed to give up things, we need to feel an agony and focus our thoughts on Jesus’ sufferings.
But that’s not really what Lent is about. Lent is meant to be a gift. Lent is an annual opportunity to take our own intentional diversion into the wilderness. We need this detour. Lent offers us a time to refresh and renew. It’s a reset period where we can return to our true center.
Our own Lenten detour is a time of reflection on our inner nature and limitations. But, just like Jesus, it’s framed by the words spoken over us at our own baptism, words of unending grace and assurance, by the Spirit’s entry and faithful remaining. Our detour into Lent’s wilderness is buoyed by the promises in our baptism. And that’s why we can journey into this season.
Framed by baptism’s promises, Lent is also surrounded by the created order, breathing the grace of God around and over us, and also by the angels interceding on our behalf.
Lent is a safe place where we can leave behind our old failings. Lent invites us to be renewed in the silent, eternal love of God, in, with, and under our being.
After his 40-day retreat in the wild places, Jesus returned to the world and began his momentous ministry. Lent’s annual invitation to detour into its lonely place refreshes, renews our soul. It resets our bearings so that we, too, can return to the world and be about our own ministries in the name of the Triune God. May this Lent be a blessing to you.
