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Get your own, Free HomepageRev. Sue Yarber
These six verses in Mark encompass most of human experience. They contain:
1. An extraordinary experience a voice from heaven;
2. An isolating experience, forty days in the desert;
3. A tempting experience, Satan hounding him;
4. An experience of God’s true love, angels attending him;
5. An experience of internal strength, Christ’s ability to proclaim the truth,
“The Kindom of God is near.”
We live in such a world of racket and activity that people talk on cell phones, drive and try to eat lunch all at the same time. It can be a challenge to be quiet and hear anything at all, let alone hear God. Consider the shock of the witnesses when from the heavens they heard God’s booming voice, “You are my Beloved Child, whom I love, in you I am well pleased.” I imagine the voice of James Earl Jones belting out the words and people shaking with fear and excitement. Let’s see how it feels to hear these words said to us. Please turn to your neighbor on the right and the left and say, “You are my Beloved Child, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.” It is different if the words are said by a stranger than by a dear friend. So it is when we hear God say them to us. Are these words from a God we do not really know and have a relationship with? Or are they words from an intimate other who knows us and on whom we rely daily?
The truth is saints, that every day God says it about you. It is an amazing love, totally unconditional, that God claims us as God’s children. The question is not how God thinks and feels about you, it is “how do you relate to God?”
We play a part in experiencing the extraordinary. It is not just something that happens to us. It takes a conscious awareness of God’s presence in our lives to recognize the extraordinary when it happens.
The number forty is significant in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The floodin Genesis lasted for forty days. The Hebrews wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Moses fasted for forty days before he received the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. And now Jesus is in the desert being tempted before he starts his world-changing ministry. We celebrate the season of Lent for forty days, excluding Sundays, prior to Easter. Being in the desert for forty days…now that is isolation. I think about Jesus… God calls you a Beloved Child and then you are mysteriously led to the desert to be tempted. I can’t imagine what Jesus thought or felt during this time…confusion, doubt, fear, anger, and perhaps, profound loneliness.
When are your desert times? Do you relate to the feelings I just mentioned? Perhaps, you are in the middle of a “temptation experience” right now? You are plagued by negative thought patterns, or tormented bad addictions, or stuck in destructive relationships. Maybe you are so tired that you can’t remember the refreshing taste of water…you have been parched so long.
Isolation can be fatal, maybe not physically fatal; people live in solitaryconfinement for years. Isolation is spiritually taxing. We can forget that we are God’s beloved children. We can starve spiritually when we are isolated.
You can be isolated in a room full of people, afraid to speak your truth. You can be alone and not at all isolated. You can experience your connectedness to God and others while alone. We rely on each other to help us stay connected to God. We come here each week because there is something soul feeding about gathering as a people of faith and sharing in prayer and praise, in petition and thanksgiving. Faith does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in community. We see God at work in others. We experience God through others. Isolation is the way that temptation can grab us.
I am not big on Satan. Of course, if you are big on Satan and believe that Satan is a strong spiritual force in the world then you probably believe that “Satan” is causing me to downplay his power. It’s a catch 22, isn’t it? I believe that evil exists in the world. Every human being possesses both the capacity for good and evil. We make choices and we have opportunities to make different ones in the future. Wounded people, I think that includes all of us, sometimes make choices that cause hurt or harm to others or tothemselves. Sometimes the harm is perpetrated upon another but, more often, it is a result of our own imperfection. It is a passive rather than activeprocess. Satan has just about as much power as we give Satan. I see no need to attribute every difficulty to Satan. Whenever our vision, our thoughts and actions, are clouded from the light of Christ’s love then we have taken a step away from God’s will.
Perhaps it is a game of semantics but I think not. Ask my former co-worker, Susan, who is epileptic and had a priest offer to “exorcise the devil from her.” Or speak to the countless folks who have been prayed over so that “they might overcome their evil passions of homosexuality.”
We make a decision daily whether we will embrace the unconditional love of God or allow our lives to veer off the divine course. If we choose Christ and follow the teachings of Jesus we do not need to be afraid of the tempter. Christ’s strength is perfect when our strength is gone.
Let the story of Jesus inform your life. Satan has no power because Jesus came from the desert and went on to save all of us. Do not allow the temptation of fear to mess with your Jesus, your life, your heart and your divine purpose. Claim the truth that just as sure as you were set free from sin because Christ came to save you there is no power more powerful than God.
Sometimes the voice of God reminds me that the prayer chain is working on an issue with God. There is a force that binds us one to another. The force is present when we pray and when we gather as a community. Isolation is an illusion…God is always there. We are never truly alone.
God uses many different mediums to speak to us. Last week Rev. Dale mentioned nature and how it gives witness to God’s constant presence. Music and art have a way of communicating to us that there is a collective “we”…I was blessed to see the Van Gogh exhibit when it was in town. I sat and stared at a painting and thought about how many people around the world were mesmerized by the same painting. I felt connected. When I was in seminary I sang in the choir and as we practiced a difficult Bach Cantata I thoughtabout the people throughout the world that struggled with the same difficult music. I felt connected to Christians singing God’s praises in the 17th century. We have an amazing God. God uses people, nature, music and art to speak to us.
Jesus returned from the desert to start his ministry. He boldly proclaimed, “Repent, for the kindom of God is near.” Repent means “to turn away.” Jesus turned away from Satan, evil and moved towards the kindom of God.
The kindom of God is near, it is in every breath we breathe. It is in the wind, the sun, and the rain. The kindom of God is within each one of us. We, alone, do not have the strength to walk away from fear, from our troubles, from pain, but collectively the power of Christ can move us, all of us, ever closer to God no matter what happens in the world.
Holy and Amazing God, we lift up our broken and troubled world to you. Forgive our violence against one another and against your creation. We stand in awe of your persistent love for all your children: Christian, Jew and Muslim, as well as all other faiths. We pray for peace in our world and peace within each human heart. We pray in the name of your beloved child, and our Holy Savior, Jesus the Christ, Amen.
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