Wilderness Happens
March 6, 2022 + First Sunday in Lent + + Pr. Michelle Sevig
I’m the type of person who loves being in the wilderness. As a teenager, on a youth group trip to the Boundary Waters of Minnesota and Canada, I grew to love the slow pace, the quiet waters, even moving between lakes with a canoe on my back. Since then I’ve enjoyed backpacking trips in the mountains and hiking at Holden Village. It is good to be in the wilderness.Unless you are led there by the Holy Spirit, alone and tempted by the devil for 40 days.
Most of the time when we encounter the wilderness of the outdoors we do so intentionally with adequate supplies, a plan and an emergency contact if we don't return at a given time. But Jesus was in a barren place, not for an enjoyable backpacking trip with his friends, but driven there by the Holy Spirit, right after his baptism, when the heavens opened up and God declared, “You are my beloved one, with you I am well pleased.”
Still dripping wet from his baptism, where his identity as Beloved One was made known and clear, the Spirit led him into the wilderness. In those 40 days of wilderness wandering Jesus faced powerful assaults on that truth as the evil one taunted and tempted him and tried to steer Jesus away from the truth–that he is God’s precious and beloved one.
We may feel like we have our own wilderness wanderings at times, even though we live in a large city. Wilderness is also used as a metaphor for those times when we experience times of suffering and evil. After two full years of a global pandemic that has taken six million lives worldwide and turned our daily lives upside down and inside out, and caused divisions and evil to uproot in unexpected places, we’ve experienced a wilderness time that has caused many to question their faith, their connection to God and drift from church communities.
This week, as people of every age and faith tradition in Ukraine and Russia face the terrors and losses of war, we are asked once again to consider what it means that we –all of us–regardless of where we live or what political views we espouse–are small, mortal, vulnerable and defenseless. We, too, live in a wilderness where evil is ever before us.
And I know, just from looking at the prayer requests in the e-news and talking with many of you, that your personal experiences with the wilderness right now are really difficult–accompanying loved ones who are ill or living with loss from Alzheimers, cancer diagnoses and treatments, tough decisions about dissolving marriages, worries about children’s mental health after two years of isolation, or grieving the death of loved ones.
We live in a world where evil and suffering are ever before us. Many of us would like to believe that God will protect us from what it means to be human in a broken, dangerous world. But if the cross teaches us anything, it teaches that God’s precious and beloved ones still bleed, still ache, still die. We are loved in our vulnerability. Not out of it. We are children of a God who accompanies us in our suffering, not a God who guarantees us a lifetime of immunity.
Many times as a chaplain I’ll hear people give meaning to their suffering by saying, “God never gives you more than you can handle.” I wish I could say, “That’s a bunch of malarkey!” But I can’t and I won’t. However, I will tell you that that statement, which I’m sure some of you have heard and maybe even used too, is a twist of a biblical passage from 1st Corinthians 10:13
No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing God will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.
God does not give you suffering: doesn’t decide to give you cancer, doesn’t test your faithfulness by causing the death of a loved one, doesn’t see if you love God above all else by taking away your job, your house, your family. But God, through the Spirit, is faithful and is with you to help you endure it.
Jesus was in the wilderness, filled with the Holy Spirit, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. His identity as Beloved One, was put to the test. If you are the Son of God, make this stone into bread. If you are the Holy One, worship me and I’ll give you all the power of the world. If you are beloved of God, jump and God will protect you.
Maybe the true comfort of this passage is that when Jesus was being tested, when his humanity and vulnerability laid bare and he was tempted by the false identity that evil promised, he had the gift of the Holy Spirit nudging him, “No, you got this. You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased.”
We are not alone in our wilderness either. We do not encounter life’s wildernesses without remembering the waters of baptism still on our foreheads. In our baptisms, we too are given the identity of God’s child and we are given the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our baptisms do not protect us from temptations, or from the challenges that our lives are bound to include. Baptism gives us confidence to trust that our identity is defined by our relationship to God and not by anything else.
The gospels tell us that Jesus did not choose to enter the wilderness, yet he was full of the Holy Spirit and led by the Spirit in those 40 days. We don’t always choose to enter the wilderness either. We don’t volunteer for pain or loss; volunteer for danger or terror. But wilderness happens. It comes unbidden and unwelcome. And when it does, beloved child of God, keep your ears open to hear the Holy Spirit within you, saying, “You got this. You are my beloved. With you I am well pleased.”
