GENESIS 9:8-15 | 1 PETER 3:18-22 | MARK 1:12-15
The Pastor’s Reflections
The Gospels invite us to enter the narratives they spin. We don’t only recall an event in the life of Jesus so that we can think about it; we enter it. We become Jesus. We dress in his clothing, speak his words, feel his emotions. Today’s passage, the account of Jesus’ temptation in the desert, doesn’t pull us away from our time or our world; it intensifies it. It brings it into focus.
I believe that the entire human family is experiencing a Spirit-directed time of temptation. Many countries are in crisis. It has become painfully obvious that no one and no country is an island. Everything is interconnected, whether we want it that way or not. The Middle East is a powder keg, its fuse dangerously close to being lit. In the Far East, a city and a vast, powerful country are engaged in a dangerous game of chicken. The earth of Eastern Europe is muddied with blood. Democracies are floundering. Fascism continues to seduce one country after another; our own included. You and I, and the entire human family, are Jesus in the desert.
Mark adds an important sentence to his account of Jesus’ temptation that we need to note. “He was among the wild beasts and the angels ministered to him.” God didn’t take the temptations away. God didn’t save him from the crucible. He was still in the desert in the midst of the wild beasts.
Mark is recalling for us Isaiah’s prophecy of universal peace when the lion and the lamb live together in a new world, a redeemed world – the world Jesus called the kingdom of God. These angels who came to him in the desert will again minister to him in Gethsemane as he begins his Passover to the new Eden. Mark is giving us hope. He’s telling us the that a time of temptation always opens to a time of grace.
This year’s 40 days of Lent, our time in the desert, may be one of the most important times of our lives. Temptations are sent to us to purify us and to make us strong. This Lent we’re being challenged to question the way we have been thinking. We’re being challenged to question our loyalties. But the Spirit is with us in our temptation. The angels minister to us. We’re being guided to open our eyes and our hearts, to envision, perhaps for the first time, the world God intends for us, the Kingdom of God. Let’s strengthen ourselves for these forty days with Paul’s words to the Christians of Corinth, “the world as we know it is passing.”
Prayer Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. May Christians and all people of good faith, join together as brothers and sisters united by the bond of love. May the sacrifices we make for the good of all help to bring about your reign.
Amen.
