This is the “Book of Common Worship.” Until I went to seminary, I didn’t know this existed. Imagine my surprise to discover that the Presbyterian Church had published a book full of prayers, ceremonies, and preparation for worship. It also includes a lectionary, which is a sort of assigned reading for the Church … a three year cycle of scripture during which you will cover most of the Bible, particularly the Gospels. And you won’t be by yourself. On any given Sunday, Methodist, Lutheran, Congregational, and Roman Catholic churches are using roughly the same lectionary.
Christmas and Easter are the two most important days in the Church year. Of course, we are all familiar with the terms Advent and Lent, that lead up to these high holy days. I’ve always thought that there are two awfully long dry spells in between these two special days. Well, there are! The Book of Common Worship calls these periods Ordinary Time. There are two periods of Ordinary Time, which are the times between Christmas and Easter and Easter and Christmas. Today’s scripture is often read during the first Sunday of Ordinary Time after Christmas. I chose it because I think it teaches us something about what to do with this good news we just finished celebrating.
We have been praising the anniversary of the birth of our Savior. In the last several weeks, we put up Christmas trees and decorated our homes. We decorated our churches. We gave gifts to each other, spent some time away from work, and generally we have tried to be nicer and more forgiving than usual. We have gathered and visited with family and loved ones. We have tried, each in his or her own way, to stop our little corner of the world from spinning for a moment in order to savor the meaning of this extraordinary event that we call Christmas.
But Christmas is over. All of us have already taken down the tree. Our long distance relatives who made it home for Christmas are back at work, as are we. And it’s three months of “Ordinary Time” ‘til the Easter season begins. What Now? Try as we might, Christmas just won’t stretch all the way to Easter. What Now?
The story of Jesus is in all four Gospels, but each tells the story in its own way. Each has little to say about the first 30 years Jesus lived. In Matthew, Jesus is taken to Egypt Jordan River for baptism.
In Luke, Jesus is circumcised on the eighth day according to Jewish custom. Luke tells us that Jesus grew and became strong; filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him. At age 12, Jesus sits in the temple courts debating with the elders. The next scene is at the Jordan
Mark and John skip both Jesus’ birth and youth, and begin their stories with John’s baptism of Jesus. This baptism by John is understood as the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. In the Gospel of John, Jesus begins gathering his disciples the very next day after his baptism. But the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) are different from John, and remarkable in their similarity about what happens next. For Jesus, at the beginning of his earthly ministry, his “What Now” was to be led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil for forty days.
Let’s look at the lesson preserved for us by Matthew, Mark and Luke. First, Jesus went into the desert. He didn’t go home; he didn’t go to town; he didn’t go to anything warm and familiar. He went to the desert. The Greek word translated here as desert is often translated as wilderness. The Hebrew term is tohu vebohu, which means formlessness and void. The connotation is roughly the same. It is hot by day and cold by night, with nothing more than a rock for a pillow. In the winter, temperatures in the desert may drop over 80 degrees, turning a daytime furnace into a nighttime freezer. It is lonely, and it can be dangerous in the wilderness. Tim Laniak, in his book While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks, says that biblically, the wilderness is a place of dependent, disciplined, purifying solitude where God must be trusted; that deserts bring people quickly to the end of their self-sufficiency and independence. This desolate, dangerous environment is the place Jesus went to prepare.
Secondly, Jesus was tempted by the devil. He was without comfort, without support from family or friends, fasting and hungry. He was vulnerable. The devil knew this well, and plied him with offers of fame, fortune and power. He used his knowledge of Jesus’ desires to test him in ways that were difficult for Jesus to resist. Satan knew the right buttons to push. He always does, doesn’t he? Yet, Jesus had a Scriptural answer for each question Satan posed.
Third, this whole desert experience played out over forty days. The Biblical significance of the number 40 is maturity; perfection. It’s the time needed for something to come to full flower; to reach wholeness. It is a time without which we cannot reach the goals we set, or that are set for us. Laniak says that “symbolically, Jesus relived the challenge that God’s people had once failed. Matching their forty years, Jesus spent forty days sustained exclusively by God’s word.”
Last, and most important, is the very first element named by the gospel writers. Jesus was led by the Spirit. Jesus sought this experience. He sought the wilderness and all its discomforts. He sought the temptation of Satan. He sought the time which would refine and purify his resolve; his mission. Why? Because he was led by the Spirit. And when he came out of the wilderness, out of the temptation, out of that seemingly interminable time, he was ready to do God’s work. Do not mistake that because he was the Son of God that this was somehow an easy task. Jesus was also the Son of Man, as Luke continually reminds us. It was not a foregone conclusion that Jesus would pass this test; any more than he would live a sinless life and take on the sin of mankind at Calvary just three years later. All this had to be done by a man, or Jesus’ example could not be held up to us as the Spirit filled life that we can imitate. As a man, Jesus lived the type of life that the apostle Paul tells us is available to each of us here and now through God’s grace.
Just a couple weeks ago, we as Christians celebrated the anniversary of God’s offer of a new beginning for mankind. But it’s a long time between Christmas and Easter; between birth and resurrection. There’s a lot of ordinary time in there to deal with. The birth and the resurrection are events chiseled in our memories. They are the cornerstones of our belief system. But cornerstones only start buildings. Site preparation has to be completed even before cornerstones are laid. Jesus knew this. And so, at the beginning of his ministry, he prepared himself. How did Jesus prepare? He was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil for 40 days.
What has this got to do with you and me? I think it has to do with that space that the Book of Common Worship calls Ordinary Time. I don’t think Jesus would call it that. I think Jesus would tell us that this space between Christmas and Easter is anything but ordinary. I think he would tell us, as I think Matthew, Mark and Luke have told us, that it is the end of the beginning. I think he would tell us that ordinary time is our time in the wilderness, and that we should seek it, for it is our time to get ready, to prepare, to be refined and sifted, not only by Satan, but sometimes by God himself.
As Christians, few of us will literally go into the desert, although such opportunities do exist. Sometimes mission trips provide a sort of wilderness experience. But there are all kinds of wildernesses. There is the wilderness that comes from the all encompassing attention required for parenting an infant. There is the wilderness that comes from an empty nest. There is the wilderness that inevitably comes from all kinds of loss, from dealing with the end of a marriage or the loss of a job or the ending of a career to dealing with issues of aging and death of loved ones and of ourselves. There is the wilderness of doing the same thing, going the same places, performing the same chores, day after day after day with no end in sight. Yes, there are all kinds of wildernesses.
For Christians, there is also that barren place we encounter from time to time when, try as we will, we find ourselves some distance from the God we worship. These are the dark places where we call out to God for help, and wait, not so patiently, for his answer or guidance.
But there is another kind of wilderness for Christians; the kind Jesus experienced as his ministry began. It is the kind of wilderness that we should come to welcome with arms and hearts as open as those we have for loved ones returning home for Christmas. It is the kind of wilderness in which we are led by the Spirit, perhaps to be tempted, but always to be guided to a new depth of understanding of that for which we have been called. After all, we are God’s people. And we have been called—to discipleship, to ministry, to lives lived as His children. And our wilderness experience won’t last forever; just for forty days, just until we are made ready for the next step. It will last until we are led out of the wilderness by that same Holy Spirit.
What Now? In this New Year, when we are prone to making resolutions for change, why not look for God in the wilderness that sometimes is life? The wilderness that begins for us as an earthly burden can become an encounter with the very Spirit of God, if only we invite it. Barbara Brown Taylor, the great Christian author, asks this:
What does this mean, day to day? It means noticing the
difference between the times we are hanging back, clinging
to our limits, and the times we are moving out, pushing into
new and often frightening territory. It is the difference between…protecting yourself and putting yourself in the paths
of strangers, being the first to extend your hand, aching with empathy for a world in travail, trying new things, changing your mind.
In this period between Christmas and Easter, do as Luke tells us that Jesus did. Grow and become strong, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God will be upon you. Like Jesus, let yourself be led by the Spirit. Go willingly into the desert. God is there, and he is waiting for you. The deserts of our lives are the places and times into which God speaks a new creation. So when you find yourself led by the Spirit, welcome your time in the wilderness. Yes, you will be tempted. Yes, you will be hot, or cold, or lonely or hungry or tired. Ordinary time can be long and hard. But it will end in the fullness of God’s time for you. When you are with our Lord, there really is no such thing as ordinary time! And remember, there’s a resurrection waiting for you at the end of your experience.
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