Not the Journey We Expected

Could you use a good trip right now? Call it an excursion, a destination adventure, a journey, a voyage, a holiday. It wouldn’t even have to be Paris or London or Iceland, for that matter. San Francisco or Miami or Denver would do. Or even a state park in Illinois!

We do have our trip memories, though, don’t we? And maybe you’ve been going there in your imagination. Or you’ve looked at photos. Or you’ve daydreamed where you might travel later this year or in 2022.

Journey is a very Lenten word, if not sometimes overused. Typical of Mark, the gospel-writer gives us scant details of Jesus’ forty-day trek in the wilderness. 1) Tempted by Satan. 2) With the wild beasts. 3)And angels ministered to him. One thing we know: it wasn’t a vacation! Like the Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years, it was a time of testing, struggle, endurance.

My experience of the desert was very different on a trip to Africa several years ago. After all, I was a tourist. We drove through the wilderness in a covered, air-conditioned car. With a driver and bottles of water. Not exactly what I associate with Lenten austerity! Most of you know I grew up in Colorado and the Rocky Mountains were more or less in my back yard, within view. After visiting South Africa with its history of apartheid, the breathtaking beach at the tip of the continent, and the wine country, we traveled to Namibia. A former colleague had invited us. Otherwise, I’m not sure I would have gone, despite the fact that Namibia is a very Lutheran country.

While driving through the desert, I wondered what I was doing there. Could I say that all the sand and the barrenness stretching for miles was beautiful? In a strange, understated kind of way, it was.

This touristy trek through the desert went well until the car had a flat tire. Luckily there a spare tire, but Scobie, our faithful driver and guide, couldn’t get the lug nut to budge—to get the flat tire off the car!

There we were. In the middle of nowhere. On a dirt road where the next car may not come by for two hours, if at all. No rest stops, no filling stations. On a day that was one hundred degrees, and some of you know how much I like heat!

Now don’t get me wrong. I like the metaphorical meaning of wilderness. Our journeys are not only outward, but inward. The word wild literally means “natural.” There is something of the wild in us. We are connected to all living things. And I’m glad to see that God’s covenant with Noah isn’t just for humans, but all creatures!

Jesus’ wilderness trek, was no National Geographic expedition. In fact, in the Greek, Mark does not mince words. At Jesus’ baptism the heavens are ripped apart. God means business. This one is called to right wrongs, to confront evil, and to side with those in need of justice and healing. The Spirit descends like a dove on Jesus. God declares him the Beloved One. God takes great delight in this son.

Then, whammy. Immediately, as Mark says. Or inevitably. The Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness. Sounds like there wasn’t a chance for consent! No engraved invitation. No time to discern, listen, ponder, consider the options. Nope! The Greek literally says that Jesus was thrown, expelled, hurled with force and plopped right into the middle of a wild, barren, desolate, threatening wilderness.

As much as watching a baptism is a sweet thing and can stir up pleasant emotions. As much as we teach that baptism is God’s loving, unconditional embrace, there is another wild side to it.

Is what was true for Jesus true for us? When the Holy Spirit comes upon us, we must immediately confront the reality of evil, of sin, of forces that resist God. Child of God, you are marked with the cross of Christ forever. If we any doubts about it, Lent makes it clear. This journey of life will be filled with delight, with joy, with love, with blessing. But to be human means it will also be marked by struggle, by risk, by heartache, by loss. Not the journey we expected. Not the life we are told to expect. The dying and rising of Jesus is the baptismal pattern. Death and resurrection. You can’t have one without the other.

When I was first thinking about this text, I thought the wild beasts ministered to Jesus. It’s angels that do that! I read that one person, also misreading the text, often closes a conversation with a colleague with the words, “may the wild beasts minister to you.”

These wild beasts aren’t squirrels, lambs and kittens. More like lions, tigers, bears, jackals and other predators. Only Mark gives us this detail and I love it. Is this to suggest Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom in which all creatures wild and tame live together? Or does it suggest how much risk and danger Jesus faced? We don’t know.

I must be too old to have grown up with the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. Yet I read it this week. A wild, sometimes out of control little boy goes on his own journey to the where the wild things are. He confronts and befriends wild beasts. Which means he comes to terms with the wild anger and fear within him that must be accepted and eventually tamed.

There were no wild beasts near our car when in Namibia. Our experience with the beasts was on a few safaris, again, in the safety of traveling vehicle.

But back to the flat tire problem. Scobie took off on foot and sure enough, not too far away was a desert farm, and a helping hand—an angel to us—who had the tool and the method to get the tire changed!

We may not be able to travel literally to a desert or wilderness this Lent. But nature has much to teach us, whether by looking out a window or taking a walk. Getting as close as we can to where the wild things are.

There is even wisdom in this endless season of winter. The early desert Christians were committed to practices of silence, stillness, compassion and a fierce indifference to unimportant things. As Anne Lamott says, “when we are stunned to the place beyond words, we’re finally starting to get somewhere.

Even in the wilderness, even in the pandemic when we are stuck at home and in the city, even what feels like an endless winter, God shows up. Angels minister to us and then we become messengers of mercy of others.

It’s not exactly the trip you probably want right about now, but may God bless your Lenten journey. With the beasts. Where the wilds things are. The presence of Christ always with you.