Mark 1: 9:15

Sisters & brothers, grace to you & peace from the God of grace, the Christ of compassion, and the Spirit of life. Amen.

As we begin our 40-day Lenten journey together as a community, I invite you to turn to Hymn 325 and join me in singing this affirmation and invitation for Jesus to join us on the road to the cross and the empty tomb.

Sing ELW 325 — I Want Jesus to Walk with Me

Our Lenten journey has begun. And this past Wednesday, whether you were able to be here or not for the ashes, served as a not-so-subtle reminder that we are most certainly not “going on a sentimental journey” with Jesus.  Rather, we were (and are) reminded that Jesus walks with us all the way — “all along our pilgrim journey” — from our birth to our burial, from the cradle to the grave, and ultimately from death to life.

The ashes of this past Wednesday were both a public declaration of our repentance — that is, our intention to do an about-face from our self-directed ways — as well as a vulnerable acknowledgement of our dusty mortality, as we heard the imposing reminder along with the ashes: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In today’s Gospel text, we find Jesus out in the dusty wilderness where, according to the account, he had been driven by the Spirit to be tempted for 40 days. The terse language of St. Mark doesn’t give us a lot to go on, only that Jesus had just been baptized by John in the Jordan River, where he saw the heavens ripped open and the Spirit descending like a dove on him, and where he had just heard a voice from heaven declaring, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.”

And then, without further adieu, Jesus — as St. Mark writes — is “immediately” driven out by the Spirit into the wilderness. In other words, the same Spirit which had just descended on him like a dove in his baptism, was now driving him out on a 40-day desert journey — there to be confronted by Satan, by wild beasts, and a whole lot of soul-searching alone time and, St. Mark adds, “angels waited on him.”

You might have been caught rather off-guard this morning as we began the liturgy in a somewhat strange and somber way. It’s certainly not the way we’re used to gathering, with the usual simple prayers with a few words of absolution around the font, and a hymn of praise.  Instead, we sort of plodded along in procession with the choir in full-circle around the sanctuary, reminding us of the long Lenten journey, that 40-day walk to Easter on which we have embarked, as well as the often-arduous journey of life which continues for each one of us.

If that “Great Litany” felt a bit like wandering in the wilderness, then mission accomplished!  After all, with brutally honest language it acknowledges the wilderness of this world as we pleaded for deliverance from war, bloodshed, violence, corruption, injustice, epidemic, earthquake, drought, and famine.  With refreshing clarity and frankness, we named the many ways in which the earthly sojourn is a wilderness for us: sickness, family discord, unemployment and economic need, imprisonment, the death of a spouse or parent, national strife, personal enemies, persecutors, and slanderers.

Even as Jesus was with the wild beasts in the wilderness, as St. Mark writes, so we too face our own wild and dangerous creatures, around us and within, and we too struggle to remain faithful amid the endless and subtle temptations to take on the role of the god of our own life.

What will our response be to the wilderness of this world throughout these coming 40 days? How will we as a community of faith and as people of faith — in the words of the Great Litany — “beat down Satan under our feet,” “accompany God’s word with the Spirit and with power?” How will we “raise up those who fall and strengthen those who stand” and “comfort and help the fainthearted?”

The answer lies in our baptism into the life, death, and resurrection of the Jesus, the wilderness one. For even as the Holy Spirit both descended upon Jesus and then immediately chased him out into the wilderness, so we too are filled with all the gifts of the Holy Spirit and equipped to face the wiley creatures of life’s journey.  Recall the prayer we pray each time we baptize, the prayer we prayed just last week over Sienna Maria Morgan: “Sustain this child with the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever.”

With these 7-fold gifts of the Spirit sustaining us, we too are driven from the waters into the wilderness, not as alone as we may feel at times, but with the holy and disruptive spirit driving us out of our comfort zones and into the wilderness to face down the wild beasts.

Sisters and brothers, this is the journey of life and this is the journey of Lent.

The same Spirit at work in Jesus is the Spirit who will sustain you every step of your pilgrim journey, come what may.

And rest assured: there will be angels along the way to wait on you, bread enough to satisfy your hunger, wine enough to quench your thirst, and grace sufficient for the road ahead.

Amen.