Luke 4:1-13
Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.
The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.’”
Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written,
‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’ ”
Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,
‘He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you,’
and
‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ ”
Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.
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There’s an old riddle that I remember from when I was a kid:
How far can you walk into the woods?
Halfway, because then you’re walking out of the woods!
(I never said it was a good riddle...)
This is true, I suppose. So long as you are walking in a straight line. And know where you're going.
But it doesn’t feel true when you are hiking with your family up at Quarry Hill Nature Preserve in Rochester, walking in circles trying to find your way to the rocky bluffs in the middle of the park that you know are there. Or when you are trying to find your way back…
The happy ending to this story, of course, is that I am standing here today, which means that eventually, we found our way back to the duck pond and the nature center and the parking lot.
But when you are stuck in the middle of the wilderness, frustrated and tired, you start to feel a certain despair, and you start to regret not planning better, and wishing you’d packed more snacks. Or a map.
Jesus went into the first ring of the wilderness voluntarily, to meet John at the edge of the Jordan River. He came along with the crowds, he wasn’t alone, he knew how to get there and how to get home. He had a plan: go see John, get baptized, go home. A nice day-trip, easy to pack for. Bring along to drink, maybe something to eat so you don’t have to eat locusts and honey with your lovely but eccentric cousin, maybe a set of dry clothes for post-baptism.
But then the sky opens. And the voice from heaven declares him beloved. And the Spirit shows up.
Darn Spirit. Looking all innocent and graceful, descending like a dove. Worst dove ever.
Because does this Spirit lift Jesus out of the baptismal waters and carry him right away to people who need him? Does this sweet little dove coo softly in his ear as he preaches beautiful sermons for adoring crowds?
Nope. This Spirit takes Jesus from one wilderness - the one he had planned for - and casts him into another wilderness, a deeper one, one that he had not planned for. And not just for a nice day trip, but for forty days, which in the Bible could mean forty days specifically, or could also mean a whole time; a complete time; a time stretching from now until fulfillment. Enough time. As much time as the thing takes.
Here in the wilderness, Jesus encounters doubts and questions, raised by a devil or a tempter or the hungry voice inside his head, whatever we want to call it. Questions of survival, of identity, of power and poverty, quick-fixes and eternal concerns.
His is a wilderness that is full of unknowns: How far will he have to go? How long will he be there? Will his spiritual provisions run out? Will anyone notice that he is missing? Will he survive?
These are questions of deep grief. And they are the questions we ask whenever we find ourselves in a wilderness time. Wilderness times are always times of motion, of transition; in the wilderness we circle back and double back, we grasp for landmarks, we long to find our way home.
Because the wilderness is always full of unknowns, and especially those wildernesses not of our choosing, those wildernesses that we cannot prepare for: How far will we have to go? How long will we be here? Will our provisions run out? Will anyone notice if we am missing? Will we survive?
What is your wilderness right now?
I think about how many of us here have walked or are walking with a loved one through the uncharted territory of chronic or terminal illness. This is a wilderness of epic proportions. There’s a cancer diagnosis, followed by the possibility of radiation, perhaps, and for how long? Then chemo, and if the first type doesn’t work well, then perhaps a different type. Surgery if those other things go well enough, counting days and months between scans, trying to figure out whether the goal is remission, or keeping the tumors from growing more, or keeping the cancer from spreading to other parts of the body, or keeping comfortable, and sometimes there are miracles and sometimes there are bad surprises. Or if not cancer, then Parkinson’s, or ALS, or dementia, or, if we want to be honest, even the business of simply getting older. And there are questions about how long our loved ones will be able to take care of themselves, how long we will be able to care for them, when we have to make difficult but wise decisions about bringing in home health care or moving to a care facility, and managing expectations about when we make the switch from wanting our loved ones to live well to wanting our loved ones to die well.
This is wilderness and it is grief.
How far do I have to go? How long will I be here? Will my provisions run out? Who will notice that I am missing? Will I survive?
I think about the wilderness of waiting and transition in our vocations. I know that there are plenty of y’all here who are intimately acquainted with the academic hiring cycle, and the stresses of navigating tenure-track vs. non-tenure-track positions, and the way you might have moved your family around from temporary position to temporary position because it’s just how the system works, and maybe Luther is your landing spot, or maybe it is sone of those stops along the way. And so there is the grief of persistent transition, and the grief of all of the times the answer has been “no” to a position you so badly wanted, and the grief of that relentless pursuit of writing and publishing and rising through the ranks and making your mark and contributing something significant to your field of study.
This, too, is wilderness and it is grief.
How far do I have to go? How long will I be here? Will my provisions run out? Who will notice that I am missing? Will I survive?
Or what of something like a surprise closure of a building, a worship space, a gathering space that has been part of our community and our memory and our lives for 130-some years? Navigating the short-run concerns - where to worship, where to drink coffee, how much stuff we need to move out of the sacristy so that we can set up communion each week, where to hold worship on Christmas Eve or Easter Sunday, what we do about funerals and Do-Day and handbell rehearsals. But it’s the longer questions that feel more like wilderness: When will we know what needs to be fixed? What can be fixed?What might need to be rebuilt? What will be saved? What will we lose? What are the possibilities and opportunities? How might we re-fashion our building to reflect the things we truly care about - the things God is doing through us? There are questions of money, of time, of sorting out what is important, of comparing apples and oranges, bricks and plaster. There are memories and laments, remembering baptisms and weddings and funerals, wondering about baptisms and weddings and funerals to come.
This is wilderness and this is grief.
How far do we have to go? How long will we be here? Will our provisions run out? Who will notice that we are missing? Will we survive?
In the wilderness, Jesus, like us, was tired. Hungry for something. Unsure of the terrain. But Jesus also knew some things.
Jesus knew not to put his trust in quick fixes. He knew that a magic trick would not actually satisfy his hunger. He knew that trading in his integrity for a burst of power would not actually satisfy his despair. He knew that testing the good graces of the angels themselves would not actually satisfy his loneliness.
Instead, he put his trust in the grace of God, who is from everlasting to everlasting, whose mercies are new every day, whose abundance is always surprising and beyond imagination. He put his trust in this very God who named him “beloved.”
There is nothing that Jesus could face in the wilderness - neither hunger nor fear, grief nor anxiety - that could rob him of his God-given identity. Nothing in the wilderness could overtake his belovedness, for God’s love is stronger than death, and God’s perfect love casts out all fear.
The same is true for you. There is no wilderness that can diminish your identity as a child of God. There is no time of trial that can cause God to revoke his claim on your life. There is no grief that can outlast God’s promises of grace and mercy and new life.
Jesus also knew that the wilderness was temporary. He couldn’t see its boundaries, he couldn’t see the ending, but he had faith that the Spirit who led him into the wilderness would also be the Spirit who would lead him out of it. And, in fact, this Spirit is the one who, on the far side of the wilderness, set Jesus on course to bring good news to those who were poor, and healing to those who were suffering, and freedom to those who were oppressed.
Similarly, your wilderness, too, is not a forever wandering. And the lessons that you learn in the wilderness will help you to live life differently when you return from it. The grief and the fear that you face helps you to tend to others’ griefs and fears with new tenderness. As God walks with you in the wilderness, so you are able to walk in the wilderness alongside others, to be a sign of God’s grace and mercy for them. For, as Martin Luther says, we are all beggars.
In whatever your present wilderness, you are yet beloved by God. You walk this wilderness journey together with all humanity, and together with Christ, who has walked the wilderness path even past the limits of death. You are being led by the Spirit, even though you cannot presume to see the ending. You are being led by the Spirit, even if the pillar of cloud by day is faint to your sight and the pillar of fire by night is dim.
Cling to God, the one who created you and called you. Hear with hope these words of faith and promise, from church mother Julian of Norwich:
All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
Let this refrain be always on our lips, even in the wilderness, and let it be so.
Amen.