The
Wild Gospel and Living in Deserts
by Major Danielle
Strickland
We have an
insatiable appetite for the positive. Those of us who follow
Jesus often add ‘Jesus’ as a name for our new ‘positive’
attitude. I’ve seen more than one offer given to be ‘saved’
presented as a means to be happy and wealthy. It’s funny when
the Bible doesn’t seem to follow suit. See almost every major
figure in Scripture has a tragic story – and almost always a
tragic ending (every single one of the 12 disciples were
killed for their faith). Their lives, as a direct result of
choosing to follow God led them to difficult circumstances.
Granted – they did live adventurous and full lives – but they
weren’t exactly poster people for happiness.
It’s Lent.
That’s the 40 days spent preparing our lives and hearts for
the events of Easter… (the Christian tradition)… but of course
we borrowed it from the Jews – who used it to get ready for
the PASSOVER by getting rid of everything in their house that
had yeast in it. Yeast represented sin and the idea was to
live completely free of it for the days leading up to Passover
(the big event that saved the Egyptians from their oppression
in Egypt).
To kick off
Lent we often use the scripture where Jesus is tempted in the
desert (wilderness) – most likely because he spent 40 days and
nights there. But maybe also for a few other reasons; it
mirrors the time the Israelites spent in the desert (40 years…
Jesus did a fast forward version of the event in 40 days), and
it was a time of testing (which is of course what the
Israelites were supposed to be doing crossing the desert in 40
days – which turned into 40 long and mostly stupid years).
See, Jesus embraced the experience as a means of living a
truly surrendered life but the Israelites resisted it – they
hated the desert, they hated to be ‘emptied’ of themselves.
Someone once said it took about a year to get
Israel out of Egypt but forty years to get Egypt out of Israel. We don’t have the time in
this article to explore in great detail, but Israel resisted the desert
experience so much that they spent most of their lives walking
around in circles, complaining and setting up towns that they
named things like, ‘bitter’, ‘fat’, ‘grumble’ and well, you
get the idea. They wasted a whole generation resisting the
process of ‘emptying’ (in Hebrew this is a reference to the
‘nothing’ of creation – what God hovers over to create)… it’s
what Philippians 2 explains about what Jesus did – he
‘emptied’ himself of well, himself. And embraced the calling
to save the world. See, the process of emptying, of getting to
the place where the spirit can actually create something new
is a difficult one to understand and to embrace. But it’s all
through the scripture as a part of our faith journey.
Embracing the desert places is a sure way to move deeper into
the things of God’s kingdom come.
It’s incredibly
important for us to realize that the Spirit led Him there
immediately after Jesus was baptized – which is to be honest,
a bit weird. Jesus had just embraced His divine calling to be
the Messiah – He had immersed himself (literally by his
baptism in the Jordan river) in the human condition in order
to fight a way through the muck and the mire of our paralyzing
sin – in order to make a new way to live and model a life
lived fully. Plus, it was a bit of a rock-star moment… the
heaven’s parted, a dove settled on him and a voice from heaven
affirmed his acceptance by the father. That’s gotta be a good
day! Maybe the best day – can you think of a day like that?
When everything goes right? Seriously, a top of the mountain
moment… when you know deep inside yourself that you’ve heard
the Father’s blessing… even God is proud of you. Then the
scriptures do something strange… see, after an event like
that, if you were interested in changing the world, you’d most
likely stage a press conference – or head straight to
Jerusalem to announce to the world powers that be there is a
new King in town or something dramatic and public – maybe
you’d at least head home and tell your mom that you told her
so! You’ve made it now! The thing is that the exact opposite
of that happens. The scripture says that IMMEDIATELY after
Jesus was baptized THE SPIRIT led him into the wilderness.
The Spirit led
him. Wow. I’m not sure about you – but I have a tendency to
believe that everything that happens to me that is hard and
horrible is from hell. The trouble is that I’ve most likely
designated ‘hard’ and ‘horrible’ as anything that is difficult
and tempting. You see, if we are honest, all the things that
we would do to ‘tell the good news’ and to shout it aloud are
all connected to what the devil brings to Jesus to do.
Turn stones
into bread. AKA: use your gifts for yourself.
Throw yourself
from the highest point in the temple. AKA: spectacular –
always aim for a big production. Public display. Power.
Become King of
the World now. AKA: skip the pain. Compromise the process. Any
means necessary for the same outcome.
What is
striking about the temptations themselves is how little they
veer from actually changing Jesus’ destination. The devil
never once questions whether Jesus is truly the Messiah –
whether He is coming to establish His kingdom – whether He is
going to change the world. He only tempts Jesus in the WAY to
do those things.
Jesus resists
because He knows that the WAY He brings the Kingdom is as
important as the Kingdom outcome itself. As Melissa Etheridge
sang, and I just found out is actually a quote by an old,
saintly dead guy, ‘all the way to heaven, is heaven’. What is
remarkable about Jesus is how much He embraced ‘smallness’ in
His life. Small towns, small people, small followers – always
resisting the big and glorious things of the world – resisting
power and money and fame. He embraced the WAY of the Kingdom of God and showed us the Kingdom in living
colour - and
daily. Not under the applause of humanity but under the loving
voice of our Father, proud as punch of who we are.
The thing the
devil wants to get us to do is to follow Jesus - but in a
worldly way. Be a Christian – but live like everyone else. Be
a follower of Jesus - but you don’t need to actually give your
money away – keep it. Be a follower of Jesus but… well, you
get the idea. What the devil tries to do is to get us to keep
ourselves full of ourselves. And this is problematic. We can
spend a whole lifetime wandering around, in a wilderness,
pathetically unhappy in our faith, questioning God and making
up little places to settle in called ‘fat’, and ‘bitter’ and
well, ‘worldy’ and miss the incredibly deeper experience of
the ‘emptying’. Allowing the Holy Spirit to hover over our
lives and start creating a new thing – in a new way. Imagine
what He has in mind. I don’t know about you – but I’d like to
embrace the desert in order that we might move on to the
promise land. I’ve a feeling there is a lot there to do!
Here’s praying for a forty day LENT and a lifetime of God’s
kingdom come.
|