Sojourning with beasts and angels. . . That’s life. . .
One of the joys of being the Rector of a parish is that your parishioners frequently leave cartoon cut-outs on your desk from time to time. Because of the nature of the job, those cartoons usually have a religious theme. A number of years ago, someone left a Dennis the Menace clip on my desk that shows little Dennis kneeling humbly at his bedside, presumably after another day of terrorizing good ole Mr. Wilson. His hands are folded, with his eyes fixed toward heaven, and with an imploring look of contrition on his face, he prays, God: I’m here to turn myself in.
After an Ash Wednesday service, I talked to a couple of people, and I just said casually, Well, Lent has begun, and one of them said, I hate it when that happens.
The way Lent has been presented over the years, it really can feel like the season on the church calendar when it’s time to turn ourselves over to the authorities. It can be viewed as the season when we are supposed to plead guilty. It’s O.K. to say you don’t like the season of Lent because, after all, you aren’t supposed to like Lent anyway, are you?
We mute our alleluias, tone down our music, and darken the sanctuary array for the next forty days. So, isn’t Lent just a liturgical way of saying, Here’s the cloud, and you’ll just have to wait for the silver lining?
I used to think that way, until I began to read the Gospels with an existential ear. One of the first things I noticed in our appointed Gospel this week is that the Holy Spirit DROVEJesus into the wilderness. The Spirit didn’t make a gentle request, or a slight nudge, but Jesus felt compelled to enter a wilderness experience. If it was that important for Jesus to go into the wilderness, then Jesus must have expected to accomplish something there. This means that perhaps we should see Lent as a time of accomplishment, as a POSITIVE experience, something my God would want to strongly encourage me to encounter.
What makes the wilderness so spiritually intriguing is that it can be a place of immense beauty and at the same time a place of great risk. I have had the privilege of standing in the Judean desert, and the beauty is stark. However, the elements can overtake you in a matter of moments. It’s a place of contrasts. In Mark’s version of Jesus’ Lenten Journey, this contrast is made even more vivid when we are told that in that wilderness there were two types of creatures: Beasts and Angels. Now I don’t know about you, but the wilderness is beginning to sound very existential . . .it’s beginning to sound very much like REAL LIFE.
Beasts and Angels . . . only the God of Jesus Christ could think up that combination. But stop and think about it. Are they not the metaphorical ingredients of real life?
After Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit DROVE him into REAL LIFE! That is exactly what the Holy Spirit did to each of you after your baptism. You were thrust into REAL LIFE, and you’ve been there ever since. Perhaps we could begin to view Lent as the season where we not only take a hard look at the gift of our real lives, but a time when we can also celebrate our existential human condition.
Maybe it isn’t so bad after all that Lent always seems to follow so closely on the heels of Christmas.
The BEASTS and the ANGELS. . . just try to have a children’s Christmas pageant without them. It was the Holy Spirit that drove the divine into the womb of humanity. Jesus was born into the wilderness of life, and he was baptized to minister in the wilderness of life. If we avoid the wilderness, then we avoid Jesus.
In the ancient world they used to believe that the gods lived among the beasts outside the city walls. I kind of like the image of my God choosing to dwell in the less secure, less comfortable places, because so often that is where I find myself. Lent is the season that says, Go ahead, take a good look at where you are in life. . . right now it’s the only life you have to live.
Once while St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden, he was asked by one of his monks, Dear Father Francis, what would you do if you suddenly learned that you were to die at sunset today?
And Francis replied, I would finish hoeing my garden.
I think what the season of Lent is all about is not our location, but our RESPONSE! It is our response during Lent that determines whether our wilderness will be a death trap or a National Park. Perhaps Lent isn’t a time to turn ourselves in, but turn ourselves OVER to the God who is willing to love us unconditionally. . . in the very condition that we are in!
There was once a young, medical resident who worked in a large and busy medical center in a very big city. Having worked in such a place myself, let me assure you they are often very much like a slice of the wilderness. This young resident told his supervisor that working in that Medical Center made him give thanks every day that he was a Lutheran.
Why does working here make you glad you’re a Lutheran? the supervisor asked. Well,he answered, in the Lutheran tradition we’re real big on sin, but we’re even bigger on the notion that Jesus has saved us through grace. It is just a given. By the grace of God, you’re justified; you’re declared, ‘not guilty’; your slate is wiped clean.
So how does that help you to be a medical resident? asked the supervisor.
Well, each morning when I walk toward this huge complex, I say to myself, ‘a lot of good is going to be done here today, but a lot of bad will be done here today. . . some of it in the name of good. We’ll be healing lots of folks, but we’ll be causing some death and hurt as well. Lord, forgive us!’
The supervisor asked, And you’re thankful for that?
Oh yes. . . very thankful, because I meet people here who don’t have that faith, who think that they must get everything right. . . who think that all of life is about being right. . . that everyone must get well or else it must be blamed on somebody. Because of my faith, I know that it isn’t about being right nearly as much as it is about being faithful. Because I am a Christian who knows my sin and knows of my God’s forgiveness, I don’t have to get it right every single time. Some of it is up to God.
In the wilderness of Lent, Jesus is crying out to each of us. . . You’re not perfect. . . you haven’t always done everything right. . . you’ve got a history you can’t repeat. . .. You’re walking through a Lenten wilderness, but you DON’T WALK THERE ALONE!
The Spirit that drove you to be among beasts and angels surrounds you, fills you and sojourns with you.
Our first appointed reading this week ties right into this so beautifully. Noah’s Ark represents all the parts of life that are cruel and smelly, and all the parts of life that are beautiful and wondrous. . . It’s all about beasts and angels. The ark, which has always been a biblical symbol of the church, rides out the chaotic waters and survives, and God puts his bow in the sky. If we thought for one moment that we had a Warrior God, that image is put to rest by the bow. God hangs up his bow forever, and it now points away from earth, and the covenant is sealed.
Now life is still life. It still rains, and people still drown, and it still gets lonely, and there’s still sin and corruption, but God says, I’ll love you through it all. You see, it’s still beasts and angels.
As I get older, and my memory isn’t quite what it used to be, I take real comfort that even the God of all creation seems to need a reminder of this covenant. I grant you that a rainbow in the sky is quite a bit more dramatic than a string around your finger, but still, I take comfort. As beautiful as it is, we must also remember that the rainbow was born out of our sin, and it’s not just a sign, it’s an invitation to join the God who wishes to restore creation. It’s an invitation to turn our Death Valleys and frozen wastelands into Yosemites and Yellowstones.
So let us join little Dennis, and fall on our knees this Lent. . . not to turn ourselves in, but rather to turn ourselves inside out, that we might be willing to expose our vulnerabilities before the God who loves us for who we are in the real life that we live: beasts, angels, and all.
God bless you as you sojourn in the wilderness.
Sharing this meditation with a doctor friend. Thanks for your thoughts and words today.