Wilderness Training

Rev. Debbie Cato

Deuteronomy 8:2-20 and Luke 4:1-13

The Way of the Cross –Week 1

Peace Presbyterian Church

February 22, 2015

Wilderness Training

Let me set the stage: Jesus has just been publicly baptized by John the Baptist. The Holy Spirit descends upon him and a voice from heaven says, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased." And then “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.”

Jesus was the Messiah, and yet He still wasn't fully prepared to begin his ministry. There was more he needed to experience and so the Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness for testing. In his wilderness experience, Jesus faithfully resists temptations to do less than, more than, or other than what he was called to do. He relies on Scripture and He refuses to put God to the test.

These temptations – or more accurately, these tests; catch Jesus in a vulnerable condition – he’s weakened by hunger. Nearly forty days without food or water. The way Jesus’ responds to the devil’s tests clarify the nature of his work as the Son of God. His responses to the devil interpret the implications of his identity for his coming ministry.

Every time the devil offers Jesus more – more bread, more power, more protection – Jesus turns him down. All that time in the wilderness with God, gave Jesus clarity of mission, clarity of identity, and the strength he would need going forward. NO to bread, Jesus says. NO to the kingdoms; NO to the angelic bodyguards. He is full up, he says, on worshiping God and serving only him. By the end of the story, the devil still has all his bribes in his bag and Jesus is free to go.

It is important to keep in mind that a temptation often beckons us to do something that may result in good. Temptation is an indication of strength, not of weaknesses. We are not tempted to do what we cannot do, but what is within our power to do. Jesus has the power to do all the things Satan challenges him to do. Stones to bread – the hungry hope so; take political control – the oppressed hope so; leap from the temple – those longing for proof of God’s power among us hope so.

A real temptation is an offer not to fall, but to rise. The tempter in the Garden of Eden did not ask, “Do you wish to be like the devil?” but the temptation was, “Do you wish to be like God?”

We are children of God, so just like Jesus, we should expect to be driven into the wilderness; driven into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. We have much to learn – about ourselves and about God. While it is unlikely that we will be tested in the same way Jesus was, every Christian will be tested at points which matter most in her or his life. And like Jesus’ test in the wilderness, we too will be caught when we are the most vulnerable; when we are the weakest.

Now, we could talk about temptation – about life’s tests, until the cows come home but this morning I want to focus on where the testing takes place – the wilderness – because I have an idea that every one of us has been there before and honestly, we will go there again.

Maybe your wilderness looked like a hospital waiting room to you, or the empty loneliness of your home at night. Maybe it looked like the parking lot where you couldn’t find your car on the day you lost your job. It may even have been a kind of desert in the middle of your own chest, where you begged for a word from God; begged to hear His voice; and heard nothing but the wheezing sounds of your own breath.

Wildernesses come in so many shapes and sizes that the only way you can really tell you are in one is to look around for what you normally count on to save your life and come up empty. Instead of happiness you feel sadness; instead of peace there is fear and worry; instead of joy you are filled with dread. No food. No earthly power. No special protection – just a Bible-quoting devil and a whole bunch of sand.

Needless to say, this is not a situation many of us seek out. We don’t like being in the wilderness. We like the mountain top experiences – those times when we are happy, free of worry and fear; times when we feel God’s presence and hear his voice. In fact, most of us spend a lot of time and money trying to stay out of the wilderness; but I don’t know anyone who succeeds at that forever. Sooner or later, every one of us will get to take our own wilderness test; our own trip to the desert to discover who we really are and what our lives are really about.

I guess that could sound like bad news, but I don’t think it is. I think it is good news – because even if no one wants to go there voluntarily, and even if those of us who end up there want out as soon as possible, the wilderness is still one of the most reality-based, spirit-filled, life-changing places a person can be. Take Jesus, for instance:

How did he end up there? The Spirit led him.

What was he full of? He was full of The Holy Spirit.

What else did he live on? Nothing.

How long was he there? Weeks and weeks.

How did he feel at the end? He was famished.

What did that long, famishing stretch in the wilderness do to him? It freed him – from all devilish attempts to distract him from his true purpose, from hungry cravings for things with no power to give him life, from any illusion he might have had that God would make his choices for him. After forty days in the wilderness, Jesus not only learned to manage his appetites; he also learned to trust that the Spirit that led him into the wilderness in the first place, would lead him out again. And when he came out, he had the kind of clarity and grit he would not have found anywhere else.

It is during our wilderness experiences that we discover who we are and what we are made of. And it’s in the wilderness that we find God. Not in the chaos of our

everyday lives; not when life is good – faith is easy then! But in the wilderness; when we feel alone, when we are in crisis; when we are most afraid… there we find God.

The wisdom about the value of the wilderness is just about lost, I think – lost to popular American culture for sure and lost even to the Christian tradition that is charged with preserving it. Those of us who observe Lent may get a dose of it every year, even if it is reduced to just cutting out dessert or giving up TV. The kernel of wisdom is still there: that anyone who wants to follow Jesus all the way to the cross needs the kind of clarity and grit that is found only in the wilderness.

During the forty days of Lent; from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, Christians are invited to do without some things they are perfectly capable of having. We give them up so that we can take on some things that we would rather avoid – such as a moral inventory or a lunch date with someone we are mad at.

This season is called “Lent,” from an English word meaning “spring” – not just a reference to the crocuses pushing their way out of the ground in the season before Easter, but also to the greening of the human soul – pruned with repentance, fertilized with fasting, spritzed with self-appraisal, and mulched with prayer. Lent is about more than punishing ourselves for being human by sacrificing Hershey’s chocolate or engaging in some extreme physical exercise program. Lent is about looking inside; about making time to find the things that get in the way of our ability to enjoy a life of freedom found in trusting God and following Christ.

If you have spent a lot of time and/or money trying to acquire whatever it takes to grow your soul without seeing any new buds, then maybe a little spell in the

wilderness is worth a try – a few weeks of choosing to live on less, not more; of

practicing subtraction rather than addition – not because your regular life is bad but because you want to make sure it is your real life – the one you long to be living – which can be hard to do when you’re living in busyness.

All of us have something that keeps the pain away or at least at a tolerable level. Our brand of pain killer; our Novocain; our Valium is whatever distracts us, whatever keeps our minds occupied, whatever keeps us numb to what’s going on inside – whether it’s habits or food or drink – whatever we do that keeps us from living as a true child of God. Murder mysteries, e-mail, solitaire, reruns of old TV shows, mail order catalogs, gin martinis can all be numbing medicine. All distractions – things to reach for when a person is too tired, too sad, or too afraid to enter the wilderness of the present moment – to wonder what it’s really about or who else is in it or even what it’s trying to tell us.

The problem for most of us is that we cannot go straight from turning off the TV to hearing the still, small voice of God in the wilderness. If it worked like that, churches would be full and NBC would be out of business! What we have instead are forty whole days for finding out what life is like without the usual painkillers. This is how we learn what led us to use them in the first place. But watch out, the silence of the wilderness can be really loud. Once you turn off the television, a night can get really long. After a while you can start thinking that all of this quiet emptiness, or worst case, all this howling wilderness, is a sign of things gone horribly wrong – the devil on the loose, huge temptations, no help from the audience, God gone AWOL – not to mention your own spiritual insufficiency to deal with any of these things.

But if you remember to breathe – and pray – then nine times out of ten you can make it through your first night with no extra bread, power, or protection. You can get used to the sound of your own heart beating and whatever it is that is yipping out there. You may even be able to sleep a little and wake up happier to be alive than you can remember being for a long time. There are thirty-seven days of Lent remaining. But, don’t count. Take it one day at a time.

It would be a mistake for me to try to describe your wilderness test. Only you can do that, because only you know what devils have your number, and the kind of bribes they use to get you. All I know for sure is that a voluntary trip to the wilderness this Lent is a great way to practice getting free of those devils for life – not only because it is where you lose your appetite for things that cannot save you, but also because it is where you learn to trust the Spirit that led you there to lead you out again, ready to worship the Lord your God and serve no other all the days of your life.

God is present in the wilderness just as he is on the mountaintops. We just have to be willing to take the wilderness test and watch and listen.

Let us pray:

Redeemer God,

Emerging from the waters of baptism,

Jesus became the first citizen of your new realm.

We, who are baptized into Christ, now live under your
rule of the new covenant.

In this season of Lent, help us to practice the way of life
to which we have been called – to the way of Jesus Christ.

We pray in His name. Amen.