In the Desert

A Sermon Delivered at St. Matthew’s, St. Paul, February 10, 2008
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7; Romans 5:12-19; Psalm 32; Matthew 4:1-11
Blair Pogue

On this first Sunday of Lent we continue to explore the theme of life as a spiritual pilgrimage.  This past Wednesday, Ash Wednesday, Dwight encouraged us to “wake up” from our spiritual stupor, to hear the alarm being sounded in our midst.  Being reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return helps us prioritize what really counts – growing closer to God and being faithful to God’s calling for us during our earthly sojourn.

Our Gospel from Matthew is the familiar yet enigmatic story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness or desert.  Before the Spirit drove Jesus there for forty days of fasting and a period of testing, he was baptized by John in the Jordan River.  John prepared the way for Jesus, advocating a spiritual spring cleaning.  He urged those who came to the river to get their lives in order.  As John is quoted in The Message Bible, Jesus, “will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out.  He’s going to clean house – make a clean sweep of your lives.  He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned (3:11-12).”  This was not only what John and Jesus asked of those who wanted to be in a right relationship with God, it was what they lived and modeled. 

Do you ever go through periods when you can’t take it any more?  You can’t take the pile up of paper on your desk, the clutter, the never-ending stream of emails, being bombarded by noise and visual stimulation wherever you go?  You’ve made commitments to organizations and activities that don’t use your gifts and you feel drained.  You feel tired, stressed and out of kilter and desire to be purged spiritually.  You want to live the life you keep hoping to live, a life of prayer, love, generosity, service, study, integrity, simplicity and faithful stewardship interspersed with periods of solitude and Sabbath.  You want to rest in God continually wherever you find yourself, to operate from a place of centeredness rather than reactivity.  If so, you may be hungering for an early Lenten spiritual spring cleaning. 

Right before the Spirit took Jesus into the wilderness for a period of solitude, focus and testing, God publicly pronounced him “the Beloved,” the one with whom God was “well pleased.”  I imagine that Jesus returned to these words, this affirmation many times in the desert as he battled against hunger and a series of challenging temptations.  I wonder how many of you were baptized as older children or adults and remember the day of your baptism, the day of your initiation into the Christian community, the day when you were ordained into ministry.  In the days ahead I imagine that we will see more adult baptisms, but for those who were baptized as infants, I wonder if you’ve had an experience of being loved by God, of being affirmed by God as God’s beloved.  I wonder if you’ve had an experience of being called, of clarity about what God wants you to do and be.  This might have happened instantaneously or taken place over a long process of discernment. 

Jesus, like Israel, faced temptations when he was in an in-between place, a liminal place – a place between his old life and familiarity and the unknown trials and glories of the days ahead.  The temptations he faced were Israel’s temptations.  Israel faced a series of trials as she moved somewhere between her prior life of slavery in Egypt and the Promised Land.  The temptations Jesus faces relate to his identity and ability to be obedient to God.  The three central questions raised by the temptations are these: what ultimately feeds you?  Do you trust God? and where does your ultimate loyalty lie?

What did it mean for Jesus to be in the desert and what does the desert mean for us?  The desert can be a pretty inhospitable place.  It is a place where we are out of our element, and often where we are away from everyone and everything familiar to us.  It is also a place where we can have clarity.  The early Christian desert fathers and mothers went to the desert because there they were able to face God in solitude and without distractions.  There they were able to focus on what is most important and essential in life.  In the desert they prayed, fasted and studied the scriptures so as to have greater clarity about God.  Only with greater clarity about God could they have greater clarity about their lives. 

In the desert, away from all that was familiar, and famished from forty days of fasting, Jesus faced three tests similar to those faced by Israel.  In the first he refuses to turn stones into bread, affirming that faith involves more than the bread required for everyday existence.  Ultimately life in God involves living by God’s word.  In the second temptation, Jesus refuses the impulse to ask God to do something spectacular to demonstrate God’s power and love for him.  He must trust God without any sort of miraculous healing or dramatic turn around.  Finally, in the third test Jesus refuses to worship what is not of God in order to receive the kingdoms of the world.  Knowing that ultimately God is the ruler of all Jesus responds, “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”  

Through all three tests Jesus remains obedient.  His obedience to God, both during the temptations and afterwards, enables Jesus to stay on track spiritually and thus fulfill God’s call for him.   These temptations and Jesus’ responses form and prepare him for the challenges that lie ahead.  In what ways do we need to get our priorities straight?  What nourishes and sustains us?  Do we trust God or do we still need to see proof of God’s power in order to follow him?  Do we struggle with the allure of power and influence, willing to make small compromises that eventually reveal where our ultimate allegiance lies?  Who does God want us to be and what does God want us to do and what tempts us to be and do otherwise?

Lent lasts forty days, symbolizing not only the time of Jesus’ fast and the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness, but also the period of the flood, and length of Moses and Elijah’s fasts.  It is a time set aside by the church to prepare ourselves to journey with Jesus to the cross and beyond.  It is a time of new beginnings, a time to leave Egypt behind and to live into the future God desires for us.  It is a journey we cannot undergo alone, but through the power of the Holy Spirit.  And it is a journey Jesus has taken before us.  Jesus shows us how to live from a place of faith and hope, how to make a new beginning.  As hymn writer Brian Wren writes,

 “This is a day of new beginnings,
 Time to remember and move on,
 Time to believe what love is bringing,
 Laying to rest the pain that’s gone. 

 For by the life and death of Jesus,
 God’s mighty Spirit, now as then,
 Can make for us a world of difference,
 As faith and hope are born again. 

 Then let us with the Spirit’s daring,
 Step from the past and leave behind
 Our disappointments, guilt and grieving,
 Seeking new paths and sure to find.

 Christ is alive, and goes before us
 To show and share what love can do.
 This is a day of new beginnings;
 Our God is making all things new.

 In faith we’ll gather round the table
 To taste and share what love can do.
 This is a day of new beginnings;
 Our God is making all things new.*

  *Quotation found in A Lent Sourcebook, The Forty Days, Ed. J. Robert Baker, Evelyn Kaehler and Peter Mazar (Liturgy Training Publications, 1990), 59-60.