Wilderness, the Place Between Baptism and Ministry

Lent 1, Sunday, March 1, 2009
Mark 1.9-15

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”

As our bus drove down the winding road from Jerusalem, east toward Jericho and the Jordan River, I looked out the window at the vast, dry landscape. Occasionally on the brown, rocky hills, I saw a goat or a camel, nose to the ground, but I could not imagine what they could find to eat in such a barren place. There was nothing green visible from the bus. The only color enlivening the palette of dirt-brown and dusty tan were the orange or blue plastic tarps stretched between sheet metal walls, used to shelter supplies or equipment for the Bedouin who make their camps in some of the gullies. The corrugated sheet metal also forms pens for their animals. Otherwise this terrain appears to be uninhabited—no water supply, nothing visible to graze on, no shade for the weary.

This is the wilderness where Jesus was cast out—a very scary place for one person, on foot, without my air-conditioned bus.

This scary place of wild beasts and angels is a bit like the season of Lent—a season that offers us the opportunity to cast off the comforts and distractions of life and enter into a wilderness time, 40 days for encounter, formation and change. What we know about his time in the wilderness is that this was the place where Jesus was formed for his ministry. Immediately after his time in the wilderness Jesus is preaching his message of hope, announcing God’s reign—giving good news for the world.

For Jesus this wilderness was the place between baptism and his ministry—much like our Lenten journey, poised between our baptism and our work to bring hope to the world.

The people of the Lutheran Christmas Church and their pastor, Mitri Raheb, always live in this Lenten time—between baptism and ministry. Their lives are lived in the wilderness—literally, because their town sits on the same landscape—and figuratively, because their Lent is yearlong, their entire lives lived in a time of testing and in the company of both wild beasts and angels.

In this time of testing, many of the residents of Bethlehem emigrate. Everyone I met had relatives in Europe, America, South America or Africa. And most had plans to join their relatives if things get worse. In this never-ending Lent of Palestinian existence, the people of Bethlehem encounter the wild beasts: the wild beasts of insecurity, never knowing whether an Israeli army bulldozer will come down their street to demolish their home; the wild beasts of hopelessness, because peace seems even further from becoming a reality because they watch Israeli settlements still being constructed on Palestinian land today; the wild beasts of depression, because finding work to feed the family gets harder and harder because Israeli soldiers arbitrarily detain goods being shipped into or out of Bethlehem and commerce happens at a snail’s pace, if at all.

But the Christians living in Bethlehem live their in this Lenten time under the sign of their baptism. They have heard God’s baptismal words, “you are my beloved.” For to be baptized is to be born anew into hope—not a hope based on a new technology or improvements in lifestyle, but the hope of things not seen. The certain hope of knowing that someday the curtain of the temple WILL be rent, their world will be torn in two and resurrection will be birthed from destruction. And the 24-foot high security wall surrounding their town will be broken in pieces. They live in this baptismal hope, like the writing on the wall in Bethlehem: “Love and kisses - Nothing lasts forever.” (The photo shows this part of the wall.)

God of all beginnings, in our baptism you claimed us and your voice named us your beloved. Journey with us through the wilderness of this Lenten season as we prepare for our ministry, the work you would have us do in a world which so desperately needs to hear a word of hope. Amen.