'Wilderness’ by Rev Allister Lane 6th March 2022

Luke 4:1-13, Romans 10: 8b-13

Sometimes I feel that the geography in the biblical witness connects with our spirituality.

Last week the reading from Luke’s Gospel was Jesus having a ‘mountain-top’ experience –

and today we hear that Jesus is in the ‘wilderness’.

What does the ‘wilderness’ represent for you?

When have you felt in the ‘wilderness’?

I don’t know your situation today – but God knows!

I suggest that today’s reading is an encouragement if you feel in the wilderness.

I want to explore how this experience Jesus has in the wilderness, means you can trust that God is with you in your own wilderness experience, and leads you through it.

Wilderness –

a place of deficit,

of disappointment,

of desperation,

…of death.

My family and I have been going blackberry picking in recent weeks – and we’ve picked close to a couple of kilos of blackberries (Don’t even ask me where! That’s my secret blackberry spot!)

As delicious and juicy as the blackberries are, they grow in the most horrible places!

1.     Heat,

2.     bugs and

3.     terrible sharp prickles – scratches on arms, legs, and …arms,

Jesus deliberately puts himself into the wilderness;

the place of deficit and temptation.

If you know Luke’s Gospel well, you might remember what event immediately precedes today’s passage… 

Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River.

Doesn’t the close proximity of the wilderness experience to Jesus’ preceding baptism remind us of what baptism is…?

Baptism is a submission to who Jesus is;

identifying with his suffering – accepting his death as our own; and his resurrection life as our own. (Romans 6:4)

In fact, the early church made the connection by dedicating the same period Jesus had in the wilderness (40 days)

as a time of preparation leading up to Easter for those coming to receive Baptism.

Just as Jesus immersed himself in the experience of baptism, here at the beginning of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus immerses himself into the human experience;

and the very real and gritty struggles and temptations of the human experience.

Let’s look for a moment at the struggles and temptations Jesus faces in the wilderness –

are these the same as our struggles and temptations…?

First temptation: tempted to make bread. …we can all relate to hunger.

Second temptation: tempted by hunger for power.

Third temptation: tempted to jump from a height and be saved.

These are real temptations for Jesus.

But are these temptations we face?

I’d say ‘not really’.

They become increasingly specific to who Jesus is.

In our right minds, we aren’t really tempted to risk significant injury with an expectation that we will be saved from that injury.

And that distinction between who Jesus is

and who we are is helpful, I think.

It helps indicate that rather than providing a model for how we resist temptation (just copy what Jesus did),

this tells us Jesus endures temptation INSTEAD of us.

Rather than a teaching moment for his followers,

doesn’t this feel more like Jesus accomplishing something?

Fulfilling the perfect ‘defence against the dark arts’ of the devil – prefiguring how he will fulfil the defeat of death, on behalf of us all.

And this defeat makes a real difference for us.

Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness tells us that we don’t fight our battle alone.

God is with us;

God is on our side and God is powerful.

God brings us through the wilderness.

How can we trust this solidarity of God with us…?

Paul tells us in this passage from Romans: the Resurrection.

God raised Jesus from the dead.

God overcomes death. (Romans 10:9b)

You can tell from how I’ve explored this so far, I’m emphasising a lot about what God has done in Jesus.

So what about us?

What is our response to God’s Word today?

Paul summarises the right response to the recognition of who Jesus is and what he does for us:

“if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (v9)

…For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”(v13)

A temptation for most of us is to think we can get by without God; that we are independent and self-sufficient.

Sometimes a wilderness experience will strip away this illusion of autonomy.

To put it another way…

Our lives can be full of many distractions.

These distractions can blind us to reality.

I can remember bringing our new-born baby home.

And in those first few days, all I could think about was our new family.

The world shrinks down to the immediate relationships. They are everything at that moment.

The connection is so intense.

This is among the most delightful experiences I’ve ever had.

But a tough wilderness experience might also strip away the distractions.

Usually the more brutal the wilderness experience, the more the distractions disappear.

And this can open our eyes to properly recognise the place God has in the world and in our lives…

We (really) need God.

We need God who has experienced the wilderness, and has come through the other side.

In the wilderness we can become free us from distractions to the extent that are ready and willing to fling ourselves into the saving arms of God.

We sing a song: ‘Let the weak say, "I am strong":

Let the poor say, "I am rich"
Let the blind say, "I can see"
It's what the Lord has done in me

…

I will rise from waters deep
Into the saving arms of God
I will sing salvation songs
Jesus Christ has set me free

If you are willing to give time to some self-reflection during Lent, you may discover again

(in contradiction to that deep instinct within each of us)

that there is nothing we can do to deserve God’s delight for us.

To glimpse that grace, is to respond with gratitude that God is loving, powerful, and fully trustworthy.

I do not pray for you to go through the wilderness,

but at least know that God is with you

and can be trusted to lead you through.

‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Amen.