Into the Wilderness

Lent 1
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
The Gospel of Matthew 4:1-11
Preached at Zion Lutheran Church (Milaca, MN)
February 26, 2023

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Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, Christ the Beloved One, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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It is such a joy to be with you here at Zion Lutheran Church, as we gather together on this first Sunday of Lent. Our Lenten journey began on Ash Wednesday, and today, we are driven further into the wilderness, towards the execution and resurrection of Christ. Ash Wednesday reminds us that we come from the dust of the earth, and that we will return to the dust of the earth. That our bodies are connected to God’s creative work in the world. We are reminded that God’s love is always with us, even as we sin against God and one another, and that God’s love transforms sin and death again and again. We are reminded that God hates nothing God has made.

For the past few years, we have been acutely surrounded by the truth that we are dust. That we are mortal. We have been surrounded by death, and grief, and loss, and encouraged to move past all of that, as though we have not been living in a state of collective and individual trauma. So coming into the season of Lent might feel like coming home, continuing on. Collectively, we have been wandering in a grief-stricken Lenten wilderness for three years. We have joined those who were already in the wilderness long before the start of the pandemic. In fact, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to frame our entire lives – from birth to death – as a wilderness journey, driven by the Holy Spirit, surrounded by the angels of God, and the Tempter.

The wilderness is a space that we are driven into, born into. It is uncontained, unforgiving. It is harsh, and dangerous, and it is also beautiful, and gives plenty of space for us to grow. It changes us, changes our bodies. It is a place without a map, without borders. It might seem to stretch on endlessly, but it is an in-between space. It isn’t good or bad, it just is. The wilderness is a place of God. We join our ancestors in faith in the wilderness in two stories today – in the Garden of Eden, and with Jesus after his baptism.

In the reading from Genesis, we hear one version of what is, perhaps, the most well-known Biblical story. Adam and Eve are living in the Garden of Eden, content, living among many plants and trees, all of their needs met, and the only requirement is to not eat the fruit from one specific tree. But God made us curious as well as faithful, and when the serpent reassured Eve she would not die from eating the fruit, just become wise, she ate, as did Adam, and they became wise. I always find it a little strange that the first action they take is creating clothes for themselves – nothing has changed about their bodies, and it almost seems like they first gained shame, not wisdom.

This one moment in Scripture sets off a chain reaction – both in the story of the Bible, where Adam and Eve are driven out from Eden into the wilderness, and in the story of our lives together, as this moment becomes the basis for a lot of sexism and bias against women that continues to this day. We are so quick to place the blame on Eve that we don’t always explore how seeking wisdom is what moves humanity into its next phase of being – from being isolated and alone in the Garden, to exploring God’s Creation, forming families, forming communities, forming a more complicated, and I would argue more robust, relationship with God.

Soon after Eve and Adam eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge, they are driven into the wilderness – the first time of many that people will be cast out from all that they thought was safe, thought was secure, in order to follow God. Being driven into the wilderness, whether that happens after becoming wise, after being baptized, or after asking the question – ‘God, who am I, and what’s next?’, the wilderness gives us space and time to dwell with what God is calling each of us to do, in our own lives, as well as in our collective futures.

When Jesus is driven into the wilderness, it is immediately after his life is irreparably changed through baptism, and he takes on a changed identity as the Beloved Son of God. It is immediately after God irreparably changed the world, tearing apart the barrier between God and God’s creation. By tearing open the heavens, God makes another new promise to Creation, building off of God’s earlier covenants. Not only will I not destroy you, I will tear apart any barriers that keep us separated. I will be with you – in baptism, in the wilderness, in death, in resurrection.

This ever-present God is with Jesus in the wilderness. God has made God’s position clear: I am with you, nothing can separate us, you are beloved. But this wilderness time, for Jesus, is a time of temptation and discernment. It is here, in this wilderness landscape, where he wrestles with what it means for him and his life that the Holy Spirit has entered into him. What it means to be the beloved Son of God.

Jesus is fully human, just as he is fully Divine, and he is shaped by his time in the wilderness.

Jesus faces real temptation by the devil. This isn’t some sanitized, domesticated story where the outcome is pre-determined. Jesus, who is newly embodied with the Holy Spirit, is tested. What will he do with he power? What will he do with his identity as the Beloved Son of God? Will he use his power to change stones into bread, after forty days of fasting? Will he call the angels in a showy feat of status? Will he abuse his position and make the crowds worship him? Jesus is offered power over nature, influence, and invulnerability – all things that are genuinely tempting. Who wouldn’t want to be able to make food from nothing? To be safe from harm? To be well-liked and have prestige?

Taking any of those options would’ve been easier than the journey towards the cross. This was a real time of wrestling and struggle – Jesus could’ve chosen a different path. He had the option to say no to what God was offering, and to say yes to the temptations of the world. But he didn’t. He put his trust in God, as refuge, and strength, and source of nourishment, and source of abundant life.

I wonder if Jesus still felt God’s voice reverberating through his body, naming him beloved.

In the midst of Jesus exploring what it means to be the Beloved Son of God, he is not alone. Yes, the Tempter is there, but so are the angels. And so is God. Even though Jesus’ discernment about his identity is personal, and individual, he is surrounded by both temptations and support. And ultimately, Jesus actively enters into the transformative work of God in the world, and he comes out of the wilderness proclaiming that the Kin-dom of God has come near. And by proclaiming the Kin-dom, he is rejecting the temptations of power over nature, influence, and invulnerability. The Kin-dom of God is one where God is the source. Where God is with us not just when we are at worship, or at church, but also when we are in the wilderness, or at the grocery store, or crying out to a God we’re not sure hears us.

It is always such a risk to believe that God is present, that the Kin-dom of God has come near, in the midst of our daily lives, in our individual wildernesses. What does it mean if God is present but the Tempter is too? If God is present but suffering is too? Jesus proclaims that the Kin-dom of God has come near, even as our Lenten wilderness stretches across years and losses. And we find glimpses of that Kin-dom in the stories of Adam and Eve, and Jesus. Glimpses of a God who loves us so much that even when we are faithful but fall short of full obedience, God stays with us. Glimpses of a God who tears apart the heavens to be with us, no matter what. And we strive to carry those glimmers with us as we wander in the individual and collective wilderness spaces of our lives.

We carry with us the trust that God made us curious, and created us for relationship, and community.

We carry with us the memory that even as Adam and Eve were driven from the Garden into the wilderness, God made sure they would not die from the elements – leaves alone won’t protect you from sunburn, or cold.

We carry with us the promise of God at Jesus’ baptism, that an ever-present, uncontrollable God will tear through the heavens in order to be with us. That God names us beloved, and hates nothing God has made.

We carry with us the memory and model of Jesus, who rejected temptation, and used his time in the wilderness to come to terms with his identity and role in the world. Who actively chose to participate in the transformative work of God.

We carry with us the knowledge of how the wilderness stories of Eve and Adam, and Jesus turn out. They don’t turn out perfectly, or even happily. There is pain, and loss, and doubt. There is death, even as death doesn’t have the final word. The Tempter doesn’t have the final word – God does. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t suffering. These wilderness stories, our wilderness stories, are honest stories, confronting different aspects of who and what we are, changing in the face of God. And I try to cling to the knowledge that these stories turn out radiantly. Eve and Adam, the beginning of our story. Christ, resurrected. God, with us, always.

We carry these snapshots and memories with us in our wilderness spaces. We can hold onto them in the times when it feels like God is absent. It might be good to use these stories to inform our Lenten practices. In these wilderness years, I know I’ve been wondering what type of Lenten practice would be faithful to take on. Remembering that these practices and rituals, at their core, are meant to draw us closer to God. This is not meant to be a time to shame and hate our bodies, giving up joy. God is joyful. What practices and rituals feel meaningful for you this year?

You might give something up – like self-loathing, or beliefs that harm your neighbor. You might intentionally take time to reflect – on where God is present in your life, and on what systems of oppression you might be entangled in. You might add something in – like taking a few minutes each day to remember your identity as a beloved child of God, like Jesus after his baptism.

What might it look like for you to truly believe that God will not destroy you, destroy us, even as we live in a fallen world, and even as God transforms us? To faithfully turn towards God. What would it look like for you to dwell in the wilderness, and emerge with a new clarity about yourself and your role in the world? Are there places in your life where you are being asked to reject the Tempter, and make space for God? And when I say reject the Tempter, I mean rejecting the temptations that swirl around us like diet culture, capitalism, Empire, and white nationalism. The temptations that separate us from God. Our bodies and our neighbors are not our enemies. The powers and principalities that are against God, that are of the Tempter, are our true enemies.

Our Lenten journeys are ongoing. If there is one thing I pray you carry with you in the wilderness journey of Lent, let it be the truth and promise that God is with you. Even in the midst of grief, suffering, and temptations. Even as things are lost, and found, in the wilderness. Even if you find it hard to believe that God is with you, that God loves you, one of the holy roles of a faith community like Zion is to hold that belief for each other, surrounding each other with prayer and love. God is with us in the wilderness of our lives, and invites us to enter into the Kin-dom, to enter into a changed world, together.

God’s love reverberates through Creation, through your very breath. God is ever-present, with us in our daily lives, in our prayers, and our dreams. God has torn apart the heavens to be with you, to be with God’s Creation, in the wilderness and beyond. May your Lenten journeys be a time of returning to that same God. Amen.