Mark 1:12-15
The gospel we just heard seems familiar, and at the same time, strange. Every year we hear about Jesus being led into the desert and tempted. In Matthew he gets into a whole conversation with the devil, similarly in Luke. But Mark uses the term Satan, which actually means adversary, and reminds us of the story of Job, where Satan is not a devil from hell but rather someone who can walk around in the heavenly court and convince God to let him do things to test Job’s faith. I wonder if that’s what Mark is going for here.
Another thing about Mark’s account is that he has Jesus being driven into the desert immediately after his baptism. In fact, the word used is the same as that when an exorcist drives out a demon. Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, say that the spirit led Jesus into the desert, a much gentler way of putting it.
Mark doesn’t tell us about the temptations, only that Jesus was tempted. In Matthew’s version, the angels come at the end of the series of temptations; Mark seems to say they are there from the beginning, and they are ministering to Jesus. And there’s no mention of Jesus fasting. And just as quickly as Mark puts Jesus in the desert, he pulls him out again, and Jesus is off on his ministry, proclaiming the kingdom of God.
In other parts of his gospel, Mark is at pains to show Jesus as a human being, with feelings, who learns things, who gets angry sometimes, who is exasperated when people don’t understand him. I think we can extend that same vision to what Mark is going for here. Is Jesus reluctant to begin his ministry? He seems to be so in John’s gospel, when he tells his mother “My hour has not yet come”. And Mark tells us that Jesus starts his ministry after John’s has been arrested. Later in Mark’s gospel we will hear about the execution of John the Baptist, as Herod wonders about whether Jesus is John raised from the dead.
I wonder, then, if Mark and maybe John are hinting that Jesus was reluctant to dive into his ministry. We can think of many reasons. Maybe he was worried about who would take care of his mother, now that Joseph was gone. Maybe he didn’t feel prepared and would have liked to have more time to study and think. Maybe a part of him knew his relatives would think he was crazy when he abandoned his profession as a carpenter and became a wandering preacher. And maybe he knew that once he started down this road, he would end up on a cross.
Jesus was about thirty years old when he was baptized by John. At that moment God spoke from the heavens assuring all who had heard that Jesus was his beloved Son, in whom he was well pleased. Jesus was outed by the Father, and then driven into the desert. Waiting is over, it’s time to begin the mission. It’s time to begin the march to the Cross.
When you get as old as I am, you will look back on your life and see opportunities missed, choices you failed to make because making one would close off the other. You will regret former friends or relatives that you’ve lost touch with. You will hear about the death of someone you were once close to, but for trivial reasons communication between the two of you stopped. And you can beat yourself up about these things, or you can learn to forgive yourself. And once you do that, you can cast yourself on the mercy of God who will make all things new.
And maybe Mark wants us to see this temptation in the desert this way. It’s the definitive moment when Jesus wrestles with his own plans and desires, and finally musters the strength to cast them all behind him and do the bidding of God. For Mark, Jesus' temptations are not changing stones into bread, or jumping off a tower, or bowing down to the devil so that he could rule the world. For Mark Jesus is tempted like we are all tempted. Are you and I willing to sacrifice anything to do God’s will? Can we give up some of our comfort, some of our leisure time, some of our ambitions and pleasures so that we can more closely follow our Lord?
Lent is a time to reflect on who we are right now and what God wants us to be -- and to think about how we will go about beginning to close that gap. And Lent is meaningless unless we learn how God wants us to change. That’s what repentance is all about -- the changing of our minds, from satisfaction with myself to recognizing that most of the time I don’t hit the mark, I live in a sinful world of which I am a part. Lent is a time to see that I need a savior. And lent is a time when we can rejoice because we have one.
