First Sunday of Lent 2021

 

First Sunday of Lent 2021

Lectionary reading: Mark 1:9-15

Today is the first Sunday of Lent, that time of year when we recall and enter-into the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness, immediately following his baptism and in preparation for being sent to proclaim the good news—the good news that we are also sent to proclaim. These days spent in preparation are, therefore, a pivotal episode in Jesus’ life. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all include them in their telling the good news. Matthew takes 184 words to do so [in the Greek]. Luke takes 203 words. Mark, whose account we are offered this year, takes only 30.

Thirty words. Not even one word per day! Mark distils Jesus’ wilderness experience to its very essence. Even so, he records something that neither Matthew nor Luke note: that Jesus was with the wild beasts. And here, Mark uses a diminutive form of the word for beasts, and in particular, though not exclusively, venomous creatures: these are small and likely venomous. Desert snakes and scorpions, for example.

Let me step back, and ask, what was Jesus doing in the wilderness, those forty days? In Mark’s account, he is ‘done to’ by others: the Spirit drove him; Satan tempted him; the angels waited on him, or, ministered to him. It is left to Matthew and Luke to give us a clue as to how Jesus passed those days: meditating on scripture [possibly the scrolls of the Essene community at Qumran]. Three times, they record Jesus declaring, ‘It is written…’ Two of those times, he is citing Deuteronomy chapter 8, which references ‘the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions’ and the other time he cites Psalm 91, which, to the poisonous snakes, adds the lion and its young for good measure (in the words immediately following on from Jesus’ quote). In other words, the wild beasts are Mark’s shorthand for Jesus’ confrontation with Satan, signposts that Matthew and Luke follow.

Why would Jesus be in the wilderness, reading and meditating on this particular passage from Deuteronomy? Well, it is a passage in which Moses is preparing the people to enter into all that the Lord their God has planned for them, without those very blessings becoming a snare. And Moses’ words get to the very heart of our annual Lenten discipline. I’m not going to read them out now, but they are well worth getting to know. And so, my first invitation to you this morning, as we step into Lent together, is this:

Read Deuteronomy chapter 8 every day for the next week.

Read it slowly, prayerfully. You might want to keep a journal, of anything in particular that strikes you as you read, to track, and map, the journey the Lord your God leads you on. You do not need to share those thoughts with anyone else, other than God in prayer; but, trust me, it will help you to observe a holy Lent, to your benefit.

My second invitation to you is this: to take a stone with you.

On Monday, I painted ash crosses on little stones; they have not been handled since. Take one with you as you go, and let it be a reminder of the wilderness: of God’s faithfulness and provision. If you are getting out a bit more these days, carry it with you in your coat pocket. If you are still, for the most part, staying at home, place it on your hearth, or your windowsill, or somewhere where you will see it, regularly. Hold it in your hand: feel its weight, its roughness and smoothness; trace the cross with your finger; call to mind God’s blessings, in good times and bad, and how they have smoothed—and are smoothing—your own rough edges. Keep the stone throughout Lent; and then, on Easter Sunday, when the stone that covered the entrance to the tomb is found to be rolled away, throw it aside, in your garden, or the park, or at the beach.

These two invitations are to you all. I have a third, perhaps not for everyone, perhaps for someone here. The little creatures are often the ones people have phobias about. Did it ever cross your mind that Jesus may have been afraid of spiders? After all, he was fully human. Mark tells us that Jesus was with the creepy crawlies, and angels came to his aid, gave him the strength to face those human fears, pressing deep into God’s loving, parental, training for living life to the full. It may be that this Lent, the Holy Spirit wants to set you free from some phobia that has held you captive. If that resonates with you, I would be glad to pray with you.

A text to read, a stone to hold, and, potentially, a fear to overcome. That will do, for now. Lent is rigorously life-giving, not burdensome. May God give us the grace to say ‘Yes!’ to life. And may our lives, so shaped by God, hold that life out to those around us. Amen.

 

Appendix 1: Mark 1:9-15

‘In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’

‘And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

‘Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

 

Appendix 2: Deuteronomy 8:1-20 (with the words Jesus cites in italics for emphasis)

‘This entire commandment that I command you today you must diligently observe, so that you may live and increase, and go in and occupy the land that the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments. He humbled you by letting you hunger, then by feeding you with manna, with which neither you nor your ancestors were acquainted, in order to make you understand that one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. The clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you. Therefore keep the commandments of the Lord your God, by walking in his ways and by fearing him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land with flowing streams, with springs and underground waters welling up in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land where you may eat bread without scarcity, where you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and from whose hills you may mine copper. You shall eat your fill and bless the Lord your God for the good land that he has given you.

‘Take care that you do not forget the Lord your God, by failing to keep his commandments, his ordinances, and his statutes, which I am commanding you today. When you have eaten your fill and have built fine houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then do not exalt yourself, forgetting the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, an arid waste-land with poisonous snakes and scorpions. He made water flow for you from flint rock, and fed you in the wilderness with manna that your ancestors did not know, to humble you and to test you, and in the end to do you good. Do not say to yourself, ‘My power and the might of my own hand have gained me this wealth.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing today. If you do forget the Lord your God and follow other gods to serve and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that the Lord is destroying before you, so shall you perish, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God.’