In the wilderness
www.vheadline.com 1st Sunday in Lent 2003 sermon by The Very Reverend Roger Dawson Dean of St. Mary's Anglican Cathedral, Caracas Posted: Sunday, March 09, 2003 By: The Very Reverend Roger Dawson
Like much of the New Covenant writings in what we call the gospels, we should see today's reading as a psychological profile rather than as a physical happening in Jesus' life, though having said that, the temptations to abuse his position probably had much more effect on Jesus' life than any imaginary event conjured up by later writers.
Probably the first account of the so-called temptations is to be found in Mark's gospel and that is what we have just heard. It comes right at the beginning of the gospel that is not lumbered like the others with unnecessary speculations as to Jesus' birth origins. Mark starts at the commencement of Jesus' ministry and sets the scene for us by telling us that John the Baptist is preaching repentance in the wilderness area as a preparation for entry into a new domain of God that will happen sometime in the near future.
Mark, or whoever is the author of this gospel account, points out to us that this is God's initiative of empowering Jesus to go into what we might call the enemy-occupied territory of Israel.
The author wants us to understand that all territory ... not just Israel ... belongs to God but has been usurped by a worldly and evil power. I personally hesitate to personalize evil into the form of Satan, or Beelzebub, Belial or the Evil One as has been commonly done, because it looks as though we have two gods, one of good and one of evil and the two are in battle to see who ever is the strongest. I know that this is a common understanding by many and Jesus himself may have understood the world in those terms. However I do not subscribe to a battle in heaven, with bad angels being thrown out, and the baddies making a new home for themselves on the earth till God says enough is enough and decrees the end of time, when he will finally take over the reins and rule in truth and righteousness for the rest of eternity.
That may be the view of the author of the Book of Jubilees, and may have been great when it was written some hundred or two hundred years before the birth of Jesus, and Jesus may have known this book and believed it and indeed, have endorsed it in his message of good news ... but two thousand years later, I want a better explanation of how evil managed to come into the world.
The bottom line is that evil is here on the earth, and people do embrace it.
Some have tried to explain what happens by looking at light ... light is energy that enables our eyes to function so that we can clearly depict objects about us. If we remove that light so that we have total darkness, or blackness, we cannot see. The dark, therefore, is an absence of light rather than a force of its own. The question we are offered is whether evil is a force of its own, or simply an absence of good, following the example of light.
We are being told that God has sent Jesus to aid us defeat the power that evil has over us, and that Jesus has himself been tested. A bit like saying a professor is coming to teach us the rudiments of mathematics, and to prove that he is qualified to teach us, he has been taught and has been tested by examination at the University of such and such, and has a doctorate from the University of this and that, and here are his certificates. By this, we have his credentials that he is competent in his subject.
Mark details the examination paper that Jesus has to undergo by telling us it is for forty days, the biblical number that denotes the period of testing preceding a salvation assault against hostile forces. We can find others, and we might like to compare the testing procedures to Noah in Genesis, Moses in Exodus or Elijah in First Kings.
Marks account is very brief. This may be because his readers already knew the story so well it would not stand up to too much repetition. Luke and Matthew, having been written later, when perhaps the story was less well known, would need some further explanation or expansion.
Alternatively the account is deliberately brief to punch the story home. The Spirit leads Jesus to the desert, and Jesus is matched with Evil in order to underscore the truth that Jesus is the representative of heaven's power that has been unleashed against a hostile world, complete with wild and destructive forces ... here represented by the wild animals.
The author is assuring us, his readers, that Jesus is the victor against the worst that all these hostile forces of evil can throw at and against him. What is more, his note-worthy victory is at least as good and great as any of the pivotal Old Covenant figures who preceded him.
Thus Jesus is enabled to proclaim, with confidence, that a new time has broken into history. The person of Jesus is gathering workers ... soldiers some like to think of us, onward Christian soldiers marching as to war ... a war against evil in which evil itself, which, although not totally routed, is at least mortally wounded by the work of Christ and his followers.
I have seen it suggested that this is like D-Day and V-Day. The invasion of evil with Christ as the chief commander was on D-Day and the final defeat will be on V-Day.
Jesus thought it would be in his lifetime, or at least in his generation, but history has shown that it is longer than this time span. Everyone says that, ultimately, we will be the winners, there will be a V-Day, a victory and this assurance is given to us in the resurrection. There has been confusion as to when this might be, but most people like to think of it as being at the point at which we die to this earth.
That is understandable but wasn't Jesus' original message.
It is always nice to know that, in the end, we will prevail, but in the meantime things may be very uncomfortable. If the Holy Spirit can take over the will of Christ so convincingly in the story of the temptations, then perhaps he can do it in our lives as well why not?
We worship the same God, and live in the same world. If it works for Christ Jesus, then it will work for us also, is how the argument goes. There are times, certainly when we feel we are in the wilderness. There are also times when others prey on our vulnerability, and our inability to retaliate with any force. There are times when circumstances press in upon us.
What this passage of Mark's gospel shows us, is that we can in fact overcome these obstacles and win through.
Jesus, in his prayer formula, asks God that we should be delivered from the Evil One and not tempted beyond what we can cope with ... and Paul, writing to the Corinthians, reckons that we shall never be taken beyond our limits.
That is what we hope for and pray for, and is a worthy theme for Lent.