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Grace, mercy and peace be to you …
Have you ever had the experience of spending some time out in a real desert? Not just driven through some wasteland on the way to some vacation destination … but really spent some time out in the desert?
Years ago … before the California Bureau of Land Management made all the southern California deserts off limits … my dad and I would arm ourselves with some US Geographic Survey maps and go back into those California deserts by 4-wheel-drive pick-up truck and locate and photograph old abandoned gold mines.
Standing out there in the desert on the rock-hard sand with no one and absolutely nothing for miles in any direction is a rare experience … and the total lack of any sound in the desert is positively eerie.
You might not think that it would be any different than being out in a woods or on a lake … but in the desert, there’s nothing … just dead looking brush … no visible life … a blue dome of sky overhead a vast endlessness … with no sounds at all.
It’s so silent that your ears begin ring … it’s like they’re straining to hear… something …anything … …
And so … in the desert … as if to make up for the lack of sound, the voice of your own mind sounds louder than ever. You can feel profoundly …alone.
There you are … with your thoughts… and perhaps … your fears.
In just two brief sentences this morning, this is the picture that the Gospel writer, Mark, paints for us of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. Jesus experienced this desert aloneness we’ve been talking about not just for a few hours … but for 40 days … alone, with only the temptations of Satan and perhaps a few wild animals for company.
The other gospel-writers, Matthew and Luke, tell us about those temptations. But not so, Mark. Mark suffices it to say that Jesus was in the desert and He was tempted. Alone with His thoughts …and alone with those insidious and deceptive questions of Satan.
We all know that Jesus survived the desert … and He overcame the temptations. And we also know that Jesus’ ministry after the desert was full of temptations … and that in those, He was also victorious.
The desert lesson Mark teaches us today is … when it comes to temptations and the fears we experience in life … we too can be victorious … because, even if we can’t see Him, God is with us.
One of the givens we live with day-in and day-out is that Life tests us. That is the very nature of life. Nature is built on that principle of survival of the fittest … because … life does test us all.
And sometimes the tests in our lives … actually come from God.
Now, God tempts no one to sin … but His tests do try our faith, and in such a way that they encourage our faith to grow. Someone once said … ‘God’s testing showcases our belief system.’
And along with those tests from God … none of us are immune from the tests that come by way of Satan, either.
The story of Job is such a case in point. Like many of us, Job had been very blessed by God. Satan’s challenge was: “Job has found that being God’s friend pays great dividends. It’s easy to be faithful when faith pays off like that. God, let me take away Job’s blessings, and Job will curse you to your face.”
And so the tests came … God allowed Satan to take away Job’s family, his possessions, his reputation and finally his health. And in spite of it all, in the end, Job’s faith held out.
Sometimes in the course of events, we may feel like a modern day Job. To that we let the Scriptures speak: “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”
So says St. Paul, in His 1st Letter to the Corinthians. (10:13) God sets limits on what even Satan can do with His children.
But. But what about when the tests comes … and we DON’T stand up under them? What about when we fail?
If we’re real honest with ourselves … we’ll discover that the reason we did fail is because we doubted God’s ability to see us through …
because ultimately, we tried to face our test on our own … and without Him … we failed.//
So. Welcome to Lent. And what we just said about testing and being victorious as well as failing is what Lent is truly about …
Lent shouldn’t be about meditating on our sinful wretchedness, or our failures … but Lent should be about honestly getting alone … getting out into our own desert, as it were, with God Himself …and discovering His love … even and … especially in our trials and tests.
Lent is not about dwelling on our faults … or holding up our failures before God as to say, “Look, God. I know I’m a sinner …” But instead, our introspection should lead us more along the lines of looking to God and seeing our need for Him …
In that kind of Lent, then, we can look at the tests and the trials we have experienced in our lives --- even the ones we’ve failed --- and with His help, finally get to where we can see those as blessings from Him … because they have helped us grow in faith and love.//
Let’s take a real-life example from Scripture: Let’s look at Simon Peter. A man full of faith and perhaps also self-confidence in that faith … Peter got out of a boat and walked on water … until doubts and fears overcame him and he sank.
And when Peter failed that test … we see that Jesus was right there to grab him by the collar and save him from himself.
That’s something for each of us to ponder this Lent … all those times when God somehow intervened in our lives … when we, like Peter … should have drowned.
When we go through those tests in life … many times God is leading us to consider our actions … and come to a better understanding of His will for our lives …
You see, when we fail, God’s forgiveness is complete and immediate … the problem is, sometimes it takes us a while to accept His forgiveness and sometimes it takes even longer for us to forgive ourselves.
The message from that brief passage from Mark’s Gospel this morning is this: God is with us… each and every step of the way through life. He never promised any of us a walk in the roses … in fact, He’s told us that in this life we will have trouble …
But those troubles are not the result of a fickle, out-of-control universe. Even those troubles we experience have a purpose. Simon Peter, looking back at all His troubles and failures later wrote:
Though for now, for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes (though refined by fire) – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
From a life-time of trails, Simon Peter could look back and say, “Life has its tests … but there’s a reason behind it all … it refines our faith. Do those things hurt? Many times they do. It’s suffering … It’s grief … but God is in control of it all … and it is meant for our good …
St. Paul echoes that same message in the Book of Romans where he asks: What can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus? Trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword?
He asks that question, because all those things do happen … life does have its tests.
But St. Paul concludes … No, in all these things, in all these Tests … we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us …
You see, we not only survive the tests … we come out better than we were when we went into them.
So, again, welcome to Lent! Life has its troubles. We have our failings. Let’s not spend the rest of this season, nor the rest of our lives letting those things take all of our attention.
And here’s another one … Let’s not concentrate on what we have or haven’t done for God.
Instead … let’s focus on what God has done, and is even right now doing, for us. Let’s look to the Cross … not to whip ourselves for sending Jesus there … but to see in the Cross the ultimate symbol of God’s undying love for each of us.
And let’s look to the font to see what God began there in us in Baptism … and what God now promises to do as He promises to be with us as we go out and face the goliaths of life.
And let’s also look to Him in His Supper … as He reassures us with those words … given and shed FOR YOU for the forgiveness of your sins.
The desert can be an eerie place. Eerie because we are used to our day-to-day lives being so full of interactions with so many people. Not so the desert. And so, when Jesus began His ministry … that’s where the Spirit took Him … out into the desert. 40 days … alone.
Those 40 days Jesus spent in the desert are the reason Lent is exactly 40 days long. This year … let’s make it a point … to get out into our own desert, wherever that may be … for some time alone with God.
And this week, as you do … think about the Victories you and the Spirit have won together … and also those times when Jesus had to save you by the collar … and yet, you grew.
Give Him thanks this week … for taking on the greatest test of all … and handing you the victory … life eternal. And then rest in the assurance, that no matter what life dishes out, even if you are in a desert, you will never be alone.
In Him. Amen.
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