March 1, 2009
First Sunday in Lent
Mark 1:9-15

I can think of no more powerful a story than this account of Jesus' baptism and journey into the wilderness as we begin Lent. Because of where we have been and what we have experienced, the story stands out in living color this morning. I see the upsweeping of green hills in Galilee and the quiet, but steady rush of the River Jordan in my mind's eye. I even see the wilderness, perhaps as the West Bank or the dry desert hills just outside of Jericho where Bedouin shacks dot the hillside and camels stubbornly stand by. The Galilee is green and verdant this time of year, but the road to Jerusalem cuts through a huge swath of desert and what is known as no man's land. These days, the River Jordan divides Israel and Jordan and the two countries vie for water rights. In order to cross over into either country, you need to be able to tolerate an intimidating passport check, complete with cocked AK 47's and border police.

The River Jordan IS cold this time of year! Just before leaving Galilee, we stood in the River as we remembered our baptism and received a blessing for the journey ahead. All around us folks lined up in white paper robes to walk right into the water. They were getting dunked and screaming in the frigid creek, but being the rather reserved Calvinist Christians that we are, we decided to go with a blessing by sprinkling rather than immersion. As we lined up to enter the water, a heron flew overhead and the sun danced in the trees across the creek. It was easy to imagine Jesus coming down to the water to be baptized by the wild and crazy John, so full of the spirit, so compelled by the power of the living stream to wash away the old and flood in the new. "Immediately," Mark writes, "the heavens opened and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove" and Jesus received the blessing we long to hear, "You are my beloved; I am pleased with you."

According to Mark, Jesus enters immediately into the wilderness for forty days, facing the temptations of Satan, hanging out with wild beasts and finding the strength of angels. Sometimes after a blessing, we barely have time to dry off before we are flung into the wilderness, to do battle with the good and evil forces of life, the highs and lows of human existence. This story is given to us to remind us that we will be blessed, but never coddled in this life; along our way we will encounter the wilderness, with its accompanying temptations, wild beasts and occasional angels.

Mark tersely, but vividly describes the Christian journey as blessed wilderness. Whether we are ready or willing, life is a walk on the wild side. We enter the wild when we encounter chaos, despair and loss, such as our country is now experiencing as we cope with the economic downturn. Others who are facing the death of a loved one or the difficulty of long chemotherapy or radiation treatments know how almost instantly we can enter this world and how overpowering the wilderness can be.

We enter the wild when we experience injustice that cannot be easily fixed, or unrelenting loneliness that isolates or conflict that will not be healed. There were many times on our pilgrimage when we experienced the harsh tragedy of land divided and people torn apart by the terrible burden of mistrust and hatred. We witnessed the huge wall that has been erected between two holy cities, Jerusalem and Bethlehem. We stood in the cold streets of a Palestinian Refuge Camp and walked through the halls of Yad Veshem, the Israeli Museum honoring the Holocaust. We walked upon the ancient stones of the Temple Mount, and circled the Dome of the Rock where Muslims believe that Mohammed ascended. We followed the footsteps of the doomed Savior through the streets of Jerusalem and entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which is owned and operated by five Christian denominations, each with their own church within the church. Jerusalem is the city where the three Abrahamic faiths collide and crash into each other like difficult children playing in bumper cars.

Today, Israel and the Palestinian Territories are a wilderness where mistrust and disregard for each other is full blown and actively pursued. It is a world where there is separation, tragedy, anxiety and profound despair. A world where human beings have been taught to suspect each other instead of care for one other. A world where there are walls and guards, guns and checkpoints, borders and broken promises.

The longer I walked through the streets of the city, the more I became aware that I was walking through a city that promises peace, but like other parts of the world, cannot deliver. Hemingway wrote that the world breaks everyone and it is the strong who will mend at the broken places. The world is broken in so many places, it seems impossible to mend and the strong use their power to hurt rather than to heal. Our deepest temptation is to feel abandoned by the God of our hope. We are tempted to believe that when we meet the wild beasts of anger, pride and hate there is no one on our side. We are tempted to believe that it is up to us to fix this impossible mess and that we are not as strong or powerful as Satan.

But there were times of grace-filled blessing on our pilgrimage, "Blessed Wilderness." Flowers bloom in the dry desert. A light shines in the darkness. Water comes forth from the rock. In Bethlehem, children have collected shattered glass from the destroyed buildings of the last Antifada and they have made tiny dancing angels out of the shards of war. At the border, worried Israeli mothers come to watch and witness and to be sure that no one is being harassed or held back without cause. Father Michael McGarry rises each day to give witness to the hope of peace between people and neighborhoods, and he continues to pray without ceasing for a just and lasting peace. On the plane on the way home, I sat next to an Iraqi Army Colonel, who told me that his country has been turned back to the 16^th century, but he prays to Allah every day for peace to come and says that God alone sustains him in an impossible time. There is unfathomable hope in the human spirit and it springs up through the rocks, even in the depths of the wilderness.

The world breaks everyone, but in the broken there may be blessing. We are broken open to discover the hope that is God's in the midst of human despair. If we rely on our own strength and willfulness, we will never achieve the peace we long for, but if we can imagine the peace that is beyond our understanding, in the heart of God, we have a chance.

While he walked on the wild side, Mark reminds us that Jesus was blessed by the Holy Spirit for the journey, and along with the wild beasts, the angels came to minister to him. May it be so for us during this time of Lent. In our brokenness and despair, may angels come to minister to us and give us a blessing. May God create within each of us, an opening, a blessing in the wilderness, a spacious place for grace and hope filled transformation.

Amen.