18 February 2018
First Sunday of Lent
Earlier in the first chapter of Mark we hear about Jesus’ relative, John the Baptist, of whom the Prophet Isaiah wrote, “A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.” After His baptism by John, after the Spirit descends upon Him like a dove, that same Spirit drives Jesus out into the desert. Only when the voice of John is silenced with his arrest does Jesus return to cry not “Prepare!” but “Repent!” John’s cry is drowned out by the first trumpet blast of the King’s Good News.
But why the desert? Why did the Spirit drive Jesus out into the desert among the wild beasts, to be tempted by the wildest beast of them all: the ancient serpent, Satan? Notice this takes place after Jesus had been baptized and herein lies, perhaps, the key to the riddle of His sandy sojourn.
Mark’s account of the Baptism and subsequent Temptation give us precious little detail about both important events, but we likely recall John’s words with Jesus from the other Gospels, such as this from Matthew 3:14-15—
“John tried to prevent him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?’ Jesus said to him in reply, ‘Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.’ Then he allowed him.”
In other words John recognizes that Jesus has no need to be baptized; one may as well wash a bar of soap. Yet what is Jesus doing but getting in line with the rest of fallen humanity, publicly identifying Himself as one of us? Everyone who was present who would later hear of Jesus would say, “He was with us when John was baptizing…” Emmanuel. God-with-us. Jesus among sinners: the New Man here to make men new.
And so He is driven out into the desert, for that is where Adam and Eve were sent into exile: Jesus was moved by the Spirit, the very Love of God, to go into the wild places in pursuit of us. In Genesis 3:23, shortly after the Fall, we read, “The LORD God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken.” Adam was fashioned in the wastes, the land outside the order and tame peace of the Garden, and in turning away from God he and his wife were let go to toil in the wilds. The Son of God has come to earth, leaving Paradise behind, to enter into the wastes in pursuit of the lost children of God, to lead them back to the Garden, for He knows the way.