"Propelled by the Spirit"
Sermon Presented March 1, 2009
Mark 1:9-15
First Sunday of Lent
When you think of the Holy Spirit, what is your image? Most people think of a gentle dove that descends to bring comfort and peace, and give direction. However, the author of the first gospel written - the Gospel of Mark - after first characterizing the Spirit as dove, immediately presents the Spirit as a driving force propelling Jesus into a place of discomfort - of struggle - of disorientation - a desert place!
Today is the first Sunday of Lent - a time set aside during the church year for Christians to allow God to search our hearts and illuminate our sins, and then for us to turn from our sins to God. Our text from Mark's gospel presents the briefest account of the temptation of Jesus in all of the gospels. It's a bare-bones account of Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness. The season of Lent is patterned after this experience - a 40 day period set aside to wrestle with the demons that assault us. I'm reading Mark 1:9-15.
The text begins with Jesus' baptism - a spiritual high for him. He sees a manifestation of the Holy Spirit descending like a dove and hears a voice from heaven say: "You are my son, the beloved; I am most pleased with you." However, what first appears to be a gentle Spirit drives Jesus into the desert setting him up for 40 days of internal conflict. He is isolated from human contact, surrounded by wild beasts, and finds his inner world turned upside down, as God's Spirit acts with disruptive force! This isn't a pretty picture!
Jesus spends 40 days in the desert! I never thought much about the temperature or the terrain of Israel until my son Gary was a foreign exchange student there. In one telephone call, he commented on temperatures of 120 degrees. When I groaned, he said: "Mom, it isn't that bad. There is no humidity!" I responded that 120 degrees is 120 degrees, no matter how you frame it! When I visited Israel several years later, I was amazed at the rocky and dry terrain! If you put me in an Israeli desert with no air conditioning, no comfortable accommodations, and scary sounds from wild beasts howling in the distance, I would be out of there before the first night began. Jesus stayed there without human contact for 40 days while being tempted by Satan. He moved from the spiritual high of his baptism to being plunged into the wilderness. What a shock! However, he needed this time for his spiritual formation.
We, too, have times when we are driven into the desert! If I ask you to think about times when your inner world was turned upside down for a prolonged period of time, I'm sure something or many "something's" would come to mind. How about a divorce, cancer diagnosis, the death of a loved one, job loss, move, bankruptcy, or a new school or university? You may have struggled with whether or not to yield to a sin that was tempting you or a desire to reject something you knew you needed to be doing. You probably didn't consider this to be a desert struggle with Satan! All you could think about at the time was your misery, pain, and depression.
Today there are wild beasts - dangers - that accost us! These dangers can cause us to move either backward or forward - away from God or toward God. They can cause us to give up doing what we know we should do. They can cause us to deny our sins or confess our sins. As we struggle with evil, we discover that life as a follower of Jesus isn't an easy path to take. God's Spirit isn't always a gentle and comforting presence. Sometimes God's Spirit drives us into the desert to confront our demons. How we respond to the Spirit will determine our success or failure in the immediate future and in life.
Do you seek God when you feel assaults bludgeoning you? I do! It's like I have to! Sometimes when everything is going well, we forget about God and about seeking God's guidance, and when we struggle with experiences that tear our lives apart, we realize we can't live life without God's presence.
The wilderness can be a time for growth or destruction; life or death; faith in God or alienation from God. It's a time when our character is formed - for good or bad. For Jesus, his ministry and understanding of his identity is shaped in the desert. He finds his purpose and begins to understand what God wants from him. His spiritual wrestling provides a time to discover clarity of purpose.
The same is true for us! Sometimes we can only discover our identity and a new direction when we take time out and lay our struggles and grief before God. Sometimes our strengths become apparent when we take time out - in our desert - to lean on God.
Depression abounds in the wilderness! Life seems hopeless there! No escape is visible. We can either withdraw or struggle. Confronting our personal demons takes every ounce of energy we possess.
In the opening words of her book Gift of the Dark Angel: A Woman's Journey through Depression toward Wholeness, Ann Keiffer writes: "When I was thirty-eight, without warning, I plummeted into the deepest black abyss of depression - an abyss as desolate and final as a grave." She goes on to tell of her struggle to rise from that abyss as she validated her pain, examined her deep-seated issues and moved toward wholeness. She is convinced that her depression was a gift because it forced her to face the issues that caused her plunge into despair. She learned things about herself that allowed her to move from the desert into the lush green of a well-tended garden.
Everyone has dark times - desert times - wilderness experiences. Some have more than others and with deeper despair. Some need more than time alone with God can provide. Some need professional mental, spiritual or physical help. However, when we rely on God, we discover that God speaks through people to help us meet our challenges. Knowing which voices to listen to is a gift of discernment.
One of the most difficult desert times for me was at the time of my divorce. I had been seeing the psychiatrist who counseled us in a fruitless period of marriage counseling. I was grieving! I didn't think I was making any progress in emerging from the pit. Then a friend suggested that I leave that psychiatrist and see the one she was seeing.
I called the person she recommended and after listening to me on the phone, she recommended an anti-depressant that she would call into my family physician. I then called the one who had been treating me and told him I was changing to someone else because I didn't sense I was making any progress. He then made a statement that I immediately discerned came from God. He said: "Don't let anyone put you on medication. You don't need it. You are grieving and will be able to move out of your grief in time."
When I put down the phone, I realized that the psychologist I wanted to change to had recommended medication without ever having seen me. I called her back and cancelled the appointment and again called the one I had previously seen. I told him that I was ready to eat crow and wanted to make another appointment. Many people need medication for their depression, but I didn't. I almost left the one I believed God had led me to in the first place for another. By the way, the psychiatrist was also an ordained Episcopal priest.
In my struggles, I had a choice. I vacillated, but eventually discovered what I needed to learn in the desert. It was a grievous place to be! Each of our struggles is different - and what we learn in the desert is uniquely tailored to us as individuals. In the desert, we confront ourselves and hopefully learn to trust God more fully.
Lent isn't really about giving up Coca Cola, desserts, TV, video games, cigarettes, or French fries - even though a time of denial may be a part of it. It's not even about reading books on spirituality or doing something positive for others - random acts of kindness - even though they might be spiritual disciplines that are good for us. During Lent, I have given up things I love and done things that blessed me and others. I remember once when I gave up sweets for Lent, I froze cheesecake, coffee cake, pieces of pie, and cookies and on Easter Sunday, I ate them all! That discipline did me absolutely no good!
I believe that Lent is a time to wrestle with our personal demons in the wilderness and then leave the desert in a better place than when we entered. When we learn to depend on God - to obey God's Holy Spirit - to follow Jesus into the desert -and emerge on the other side, the purpose of Lent is fulfilled.
We can't avoid the pain of the desert, but we can utilize our desert experiences to help us find ourselves and to find God. That's what Lent is all about!
03/01/2009
