Mark 1:9-15
My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. God's pleasure and approval is made known
but then God immediately sends Jesus off into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan (and
tended by angels). What can these apparent contradictions mean? Is it really so great to
be loved by God if it means be exiled to the wilderness for forty days (biblical way of
saying a heck of a long time)? But Jesus isn't sent into the wilderness as a punishment,
which we can see by God's continuing loving care expressed in the metaphor of being
tended by angels. And for us Lent is not supposed to be God's punishment or a time of
self-imposed torment, either.
What we who are loved by God and pleasing to God are asked to do is to go out and
struggle with the demons, the powers of darkness that wish to separate us from that love.
In the face of the powers of corruption and callousness and greed that turn our rich and
beautiful earth into a place of misery for millions, we may feel we can't risk the
disappointments that come from caring about those who are struggling in the darkest and
most dangerous wildernesses. We are asked to go there and face our demons, whether
they are named Anxiety or Despair or Cynicism. We are sent in this Lenten season out
into the wilderness of our city and our country, to places that seem not much like the
realm of justice we thought God was offering, to encounter the demons there that tell us
to go home, there is nothing useful we can do. Our resources seem few and our progress
precarious. Yet we are asked to have faith that the struggle is not ours alone and that we
will be cared for by angels even when we feel most isolated and ineffectual. Easter does
come, and death will be trampled down.
Reflections on the Gospels from a Justice Perspective written for St. Andrew's Episcopal Church by members of the congregation
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