Genesis 9.8-17, 1 Peter 3.18-22, Mark 1.9-15
Bridestowe, Okehampton, First Sunday of Lent, 26/2/2012
After the floodwaters subsided in the north Devon village hit by winter storms, and people began to make their way through the mud and debris of their streets, Stephen and Emily Bridgman stood in wellington boots on the sodden carpet of their saturated living room picking out ornaments and family photographs from the slime, and wondered aloud together about what on earth they should do now. [1]
After the ark came to rest on the top of Mount Ararat, and Noah and his family took their first steps outside, gingerly negotiating their way into the miry swamp beneath, the entire world looked grey to them, a grey, dripping, uninhabitable waste, and they wondered what God had in store for them next.
And after Jesus immersed himself in the depths of the Jordan river, and emerged soaked through, after the Spirit had descended like a dove on him, and a voice from heaven had spoken of him as his beloved Son, that same Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness, where he stayed for forty days, tempted by Satan among the wild beasts. And there he worked out his purpose for the future.
After the waters, the wilderness.... After the deluge, the doubting. After the flood, the uncertainty. After the baptism, the time of testing.
Isn’t this the way that things go for us in the world, vulnerable as we are to forces greater than ourselves, lost in nature, struggling in faith?
After the waters, the wilderness. The waters are always a greater force than us, whether the destructive waters of a terrible flood or the auspicious waters of a baptism of full immersion, and because of this our encounters with them inevitably change our lives, and we find ourselves driven onto new ground - a strange, difficult territory, a challenging terrain - feeling like we have been broken from a past to which we can never return, needing to find our feet again.
After the waters, the wilderness. And so our gospel reading from Mark shows us the Son of Man, the Human One [2], experiencing the same forces which humankind has experienced from time immemorial. And thus being able to understand and stand beside those who have been exposed to those forces, broken from a past to which they can never return, needing to find their feet again. Jesus stands with the Stephen and Emily Bridgmans of this world, on the sodden carpet of their saturated living room; he stands with the thousands of people displaced by the floods in Pakistan in 2010 still living in refugee camps in Karachi. Jesus stands with people who have been swept away by other forces in the world: the refugees of Kabul displaced by war and currently trying to endure persistent snow and low temperatures in the temporary shelters they have built for protection; the newly-unemployed in Okehampton wondering if their industry will ever revive, if there will ever be work for them again, and in the meantime how they will feed their family; the person emerging from a hospital consultants having just been told that regrettably their condition is irretrievable, their situation terminal. After the waters, the wilderness: Jesus, the Son of Man, the Human One, understands, and stands with us there. [3]
The wilderness always has a context. The context for the refugees in Kabul and Karachi is poverty exacerbated by violent conflict; the context for the unemployed in Okehampton is the global economic downturn; the context for Stephen and Emily Bridgman’s situation is national policies on flood protection, housing and insurance.
The context for Noah in the flood was a despairing God seeking to erase the evil from the world by taking desperate measures. But the context for Noah in the wilderness immediately after the flood was a magnanimous God returning with a new promise, a covenant with Noah’s people and their descendants after them, and with every living creature with them, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with them, a covenant ‘that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.’ (Genesis 9.9-11)
And as God made this promise to Noah and his family we can imagine his words melting away the greyness to reveal the colours of the earth again, opening the skies to the rays of the sun and creating a rainbow which God would forever after regard as a sign of the promise he made. The context for Noah in the wilderness immediately after the flood was God returning with a new promise.
The context for Jesus in the wilderness was a region in conflict - the administration of imperial Rome, native kings struggling to hold onto their weakening power, a powerful high priesthood and clerical aristocracy, the shifting political alignments of Jewish renewal groups particularly the Pharisees and Essenes, and various strands of popular resistance and rebellion among the masses. [4]
It is said that ‘the wild beasts’ who troubled Jesus in the wilderness is a figure of speech which Mark used to describe all these secular forces of the volatile world in which Jesus lived. Like the wild beasts in Daniel and Revelation, these wild beasts in the wilderness were the powers of the kings of the world ruled by the Prince of the power of the air - Satan. [5] The context for Jesus in the wilderness was a world conflicted and broken by the forces of evil.
And Mark wants to show us this - that when Jesus presented himself to John and was immersed in the waters of the River Jordan, that full immersion symbolised a full and total abandonment of the influences of the world, of Satan and the wild beasts; and a full and total abandonment to the will and purposes of God. Jesus’ full immersion has been described as a ‘death experience of repentance’. In that total submersion Jesus ended his participation in the structures and values of society. In those waters his debts to that society were cancelled. ‘He became totally unobliged’. Renouncing the old world order Jesus emerged from the waters signalling the creation of a new humanity. [6]
And after the waters, the wilderness; after the baptism, the time of testing when the forces of the old world order tried to win him back. But the effect of his baptism was absolute. Though the forces of the world continued to work their evil - with the arrest of John the Baptist, a prophet they needed to silence - Jesus emerged from the wilderness proclaiming the dawning of a whole new age: ‘The time is fulfilled,’ he said, ‘and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ (Mark 1.15)
Our context is just like his. Ours is a world conflicted and broken by the forces of evil. And the waters and the wilderness are concepts we can grasp. The flood and the uncertainty, the deluge and the doubting: we have been through such things, we may be at the centre of such things right now. Others around us certainly are. And after the baptism, the time of testing: each of us knows that our Christian faith is a vulnerable thing, that the forces of the world, the forces of evil, weigh in on us to tempt us away, to lead us astray.
But because our context is just like his, then it is equally true to say that we are now living in the the time which is fulfilled; it is equally true to say that the time of the kingdom of God has come near; the time when it is possible to repent, and believe in the good news, to totally abandon the influences of the world, of Satan and the wild beasts, on us, to totally abandon ourselves to the will and purposes of God. Jesus invites us to a ‘death experience of repentance’. To end our participation in the structures and values of society, to cancel our debts to that society, to become became totally unobliged, to renounce the old world order and emerge from the waters with Jesus, made into a new humanity. [6]
This might sound like extreme language, too extreme to relate to in our everyday lives. Apocalyptic language out of touch with our present-day realities. But it isn’t. It is purely and simply the language of Lent. It expresses precisely what is at the heart of this season of penitence: the possibility of our emerging from our wilderness no longer obliged to follow the ways of the old world, but forgiven and liberated into the ways of the kingdom of God.
The language of Lent reminds us that we are driven by forces greater than us. Mark’s gospel presents this as an open contest between the ruler of the powers of the world - Satan, and the Spirit of God. Our choice is to open ourselves up to the force of either Satan or the spirit. Mark shows us how Jesus exercised his choice, when he tells us that, after his baptism, ‘the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.’
Lent challenges us to be driven in this way. It invokes in us a willingness to be driven by the Spirit: to the waters, and then the wilderness. And our world is full of believers who have immersed themselves willingly in the waters of faith, and while remaining citizens of the old world and subject to its structures, have shown themselves longer obliged to follow the ways of that world, but who, forgiven, now follow the ways of the kingdom of God in their life and work. We might include in their number those Christian small business people striving in hard times to find new patterns of employment and training for their workers, those trying to help their newly-unemployed neighbours practically and with encouragement and guidance, those who befriend and counsel the terminally ill, those offering themselves wholeheartedly to work with relief agencies in the refugee sites of Pakistan and Afghanistan, those working in housing departments or insurance companies doing all they can to ease the distress of flood victims, in the spirit of God’s generous promise to Noah.
After the waters, the wilderness... Lent is a time for you and me to fully immerse ourselves in the ways of the kingdom of God, it is an invitation to a ‘death experience of repentance’ which releases us from our deathly obligations to the world and into the life-giving obligations involved in following our God. If we accept this invitation then we will still walk in this world, still work in this world, but the God of covenant, and Jesus the Human One who brings good news, will walk and work with us - and the kingdom of God will grow ever stronger, come ever nearer.
Notes
[1] I have invented this couple but their story resonates with many who have been in that very situation in the UK in recent times see eg, 2009 Great Britain and Ireland floods in Wikipedia.
[2] The influence of Ched Myers in this sermon is evident here, in the use of the term 'Human One'. See Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p.37
[3] H.M. Naqvi, Scenes from a Karachi refugee camp,www.globalpost.com, August 23, 2010; Afghan refugees face icy chill, Aljazeera, 8 Feb 2012; Tom French, Praise for town that refuses to give up, Okehampton Times, 1 February 2012
[4] Myers, p.54
[5] Myers, p.130
[6] H. Waetjen quoted in Myers, p.129
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