PROPERS: 1 LENT, YEAR C
TEXT: LUKE 4:1-14
PREACHED AT ST. PAUL’S CHAPEL, MAGNOLIA SPRINGS, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 6, 2022.
ONE SENTENCE: The Wilderness of Lent poses at least two options as to how we encounter it.
The Wilderness can be a place of communion or a place of danger. Consider two examples.
Bishop James Pike was the fifth bishop of the Diocese of California. He was a scholarly, iconoclastic, and profoundly controversial man. He had experience in military intelligence during World War II. He was a lawyer, and later became dean of Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
As such, he displaced Cardinal Fulton Sheen as a popular television host. He gained nationwide notoriety before being elected Bishop of California in 1958.
He was an author of both orthodox and incredibly controversial books – though some of his controversial theological views have become normative. The Episcopal House of Bishops considered him a problem, and cadre of bishops sought his conviction on heresy charges. The church leadership recognized the costs of calling-out one of its own, and sought a simpler course: He was censured.
Bishop Pike resigned as bishop in 1966 as his personal and professional behavior became more problematic. He entered into a fourth marriage. He began practices of the paranormal. He went deeper into alcoholism. His son, with whom had written books, committed suicide.
Pike went deeper and deeper into a quest for peace and certainty. He and his fourth wife went to Israel to write a book about the historical Jesus. Their research led them into the Wilderness – to the arid, parched land of the Dead Sea, near Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls had been discovered.
Their car broke down and in their search for help, they became separated. His wife found an army camp and got help. Five days later they found Bishop Pike’s body. In his delusional, dehydrated state, he had fallen from a cliff.
James Pike never found what he sought. He was buried in Jaffa, Israel.
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The second example: Jesus has just been baptized by John in the River Jordan. That small river meanders through an inhospitable environment.
Scripture tells us that Jesus was driven deep into the Wilderness by the Spirit. We may have an image of the Wilderness that is perhaps like deeply wooded areas of Baldwin County. It is not like that, at all. It is more like the most harsh and rugged parts of New Mexico. Dry. Hot. Deserted. Pocked by rocky cliffs. Nearly void of all life, save the rock badgers, birds of prey, and mountain goats.
It was an experience analogous to sharpening a knife. Jesus was driven there to sharpen his mind – to get a clear image of his mission. And there, in that alien landscape, he encountered what he would face.
He was tempted with sustenance to sustain his life. He was promised power. He was encouraged to tempt God. But he resisted. All offers by the Tempter.
It was, in a sense, boot camp for Jesus. He built spiritual fortitude. A clearer self-image. And awareness of who he is… and whose he is. He had some form of direction. And though it was probably not at the forefront at that time – three-and-a-half years before – he had set his mind on Jerusalem.
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This past Wednesday, we entered the metaphorical wilderness of Lent. It will last for 40 days and nights, plus Sundays.
James Pike found that the Wilderness was dangerous, alien, not friendly. He entered it expecting it to be more hospitable than it was.
Jesus entered it, we assume, knowing the challenges he would face. He was prepared. He faced the temptations, and he prevailed.
To enter the Wilderness is our call. Will you wander aimlessly in the next six weeks, ignoring the waters of life that are there in this season… meandering through life, seeking nothing, and finding it?
Or will you be more like Jesus in the Wilderness? Taking these days as a time to find your ultimate concern, your ground of being, the bread which gives direction, purpose, and meaning.
Which will it be?
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