The date
was May 28, 1969. The last day of our sophomore year at Messiah College. Our
class was getting together at a cabin in the woods for our last class gathering
before we scattered for the summer. We knew that many of our number would
transfer or leave school at the end of the semester, so this was one last time
together – maybe for the rest of our lives.
We got set
up in the cabin, men in one area, women in another. Then, while supper was being
prepared, we went for a walk in the woods to see something called Lookout
Point, a lovely view across the south-central Pennsylvania forest. I ran on
ahead of the others and missed the path to the Point. I realized I was in
danger of getting lost, and turned around. I found my classmates just leaving
Lookout Point and, encouraged by our class advisor, ran out to the point to
look across at the trees between us and the next mountain.
It was
lovely indeed, and I turned to follow my classmates back to the cabin. Except
that I took the same wrong path again, and this time I was lost. The sun set
and darkness came. I had no idea which way to go. I found out later that my
classmates came out looking for me, calling my name. I heard nothing. I
burrowed down under the leaves to stay warm in the late spring night. I slept
lightly, and when I awoke, I saw a light in the distance. I knew that the sun rises
in the east and that the highway was east, so I walked towards the light until
I realized it was a beacon on the next hill. I burrowed back under the leaves,
trying to ignore the night sounds of animals snuffling in the dark.
Surprisingly,
I did sleep, and when I awoke, I walked towards the rising sun and found a road
out of the woods. A passing motorist picked me up and took me back to Messiah
College, where I called our class advisor (who had gone home for the night). He
came and took me to the cabin, where I had a long-delayed meal – breakfast with
my classmates.
Looking
back, it was a frightening episode, but what I remember most clearly is walking
towards the rising sun through the forest cathedral of green and gold. Sunrise
was incredibly beautiful, lifting my soul even more than the darkness had
oppressed me.
Transition
Lent is one
of my favourite times of the year. Other church celebrations don’t have as much
space for the difficult nature of daily life, but Lent is all about the
difficulty of living. Lent is God’s invitation to enter the wilderness of
hardship and trouble. Since we so often find ourselves precisely in that place,
Lent is our chance to find God’s presence in our troubles.
We have two
passages this morning, one from the annual Jewish ceremony for tithes and
offerings found in Deuteronomy 26 and the second from Jesus’ encounter with the
devil in the wilderness of Judah, at the beginning of his earthly ministry. As
part of considering these two passages, we will use a simple ceremony with
stones to apply them to our own lives.
Deuteronomy 26
This
passage describes the ceremony in which the Children of Israel were to give themselves
to God. The action is described as taking place once – when they enter the land
of promise [verse 1: as soon as possible after entering]. The passage also
assumes a continued repetition of this offering, possibly on an annual basis.
The tithe that is described in the next verses was also a regular offering, but
one that was made every three years. We can guess, then, that if the first
fruits were not offered each year, they were offered every three years.
The very
first offering, made as a celebration of ending their travels in the
wilderness, was probably done all together as they crossed the Jordan, as soon
as they had established themselves. The annual celebration took place at a
central place of worship, probably Shechem.
At that
celebration, the priest reminded the people of their history: They came from a
nomadic ancestor (Jacob), who left his wanderings to settle in Egypt. The book
of Genesis tells us that Jacob (renamed Israel) settled in Egypt because he and
his family were threatened with extinction in a great famine. God took them and
established them in Egypt, but the Egyptians turned on them and enslaved them.
God again
reached into their lives with grace and help to set them free. They travelled
through the wilderness for 40 years, during which God preserved them and
prepared them to occupy the land God had promised them. This celebration
remembers God’s preserving grace and commits the people to serve God in return
in all that they do.
I am
reminded of a prayer that I often pray in the morning: “Lord, teach [us] to
know you better, to love you more, and to serve you with our whole hearts.” The
Israelites committed themselves to God as God’s servants. Set free from slavery
in Egypt, they embraced slavery to God – much as Paul calls himself (and us),
“slaves of Christ”.
Luke 4
The temptation
of Jesus is a comforting passage in one sense: We see that Jesus faced the hard
questions and troubles of life, just as we do. These were real temptations, not
something done for effect, but temptations in which the fate of the universe
hung in the balance. You notice the way that Satan moved through the full range
of human experience – from physical hunger (all the physical needs that we live
with) to political power (all of the social-political temptations we might
face) to spiritual worship (a rebuke of the health and wealth gospel, which
tries to avoid the problems of life). The simple point is that Jesus has faced
all that we face, here and in his entire ministry.
You notice
that Jesus responds to the temptation by leaning back on his relationship with
his father. He quotes Scripture, and when Satan begins to quote Scripture,
Jesus shows how close he is to his father in the way that he shows that he
knows what God wants.
You notice
also that Jesus experiences temptation when he is physically weakest. Such
difficulties come to us when we have few reserves and when we are least able to
resist. Jesus walked through the darkest times of life, just as we do. In this
beginning to his ministry, we see a foretaste of the cross that he carries at
the end.
A Synthesis
We often
think of wilderness experiences – the hard times of our lives – as bad things
to be avoided. The Children of Israel, on the other hand, looked back on their
Wilderness Wanderings as a golden period, the time when God was most visibly
with them. The pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night was a
constant reminder of God’s presence. Perhaps we could write a new beatitude:
“Blessed are those who are lost in the wilderness, for they will find God.”
As we enter
the season of Lent, we remember the wilderness times of our lives. Don’t get me
wrong. We don’t ask for these times. I did not want to get lost in the woods at
the end of my sophomore year. It led to one last argument with my then
girlfriend. She thought (rightly) that I had acted inconsiderately. My
carelessness meant that my classmates had to spend time hunting for me and
spend the night worrying about me. This is not good!
But my
clearest memory of that night is the green and golden dawn, walking through the
forest cathedral. God was there, and I would not have been so aware of God’s
presence if I had not been lost. This is the gift of the wilderness: To show us
that we rest in God’s strength and care, or we die. Jesus knew that, and all of
Satan’s tempting could not move him. Moses knew that, and he called Israel to remember
it and memorialize it every year.
The Stones
We know
that too. In our congregation’s life and in the personal lives of each one
here, we have walked through the wilderness more than once. As you came into
the sanctuary this morning, you each took a stone. You have written your name
on the stones and you have them with you now. You may have been wondering,
“When will he tell us what these stones are for?” The answer is, “Right now!”
Hold your
stones in your hand. Think of a time you got lost, a time that you spent in the
wilderness, a time that you wondered if God would ever show up. I have to
remind you that sometimes God does not show himself clearly even in the
wilderness. I, like you, have prayed, seeking God’s presence, only to have the
words bounce off the ceiling back at me. Remember these times too. [Take a
minute of silence to think and to remember.]
We will
spend time throughout Lent remembering the wilderness. We will use our stones
in a variety of ways to remember – to remember our hard times and to remember
God’s presence and grace. This morning, we want to collect your stones with
your names on them. I am asking the ushers to come forward with their baskets
and collect the stones.
[Sing our song, “Here by the waters”, while the ushers gather
the stones up and arrange them on the back windowsill.]
A week from today, when
you enter the sanctuary, you can find your stone and take it with you to your
place. We will use the stones in different ways throughout Lent to remind us of
the wilderness and of God’s grace and goodness to us when we are lost.
These
stones are multilayered symbols. Sometimes, they mean you and me – the people
who meet together in this congregation. Sometimes, they mean the burdens that
we carry, just as sometimes we feel as though we are nothing but our problems.
Sometimes, they become an altar to God, just as God comes to us through our
experiences of the wilderness.
Another Story
At our
leadership retreat just before the AGM of MC Manitoba, we had a resource person
who led us to think of some problem in our lives, something that was destroying
our sense of self, and to write about it on a piece of blank paper. Then, she
asked us to turn the paper over and write a letter from Jesus to ourselves
about that problem. I thought of a responsibility at school that has left me feeling drained and frustrated. I won't say more about it, but here’s the letter
that I wrote for Jesus. That was hard to do – I can’t speak for Jesus. At the
same time, I think I know what Jesus was saying to me. A word of explanation to
make sense of what I wrote: Eleven years ago, at this time of year, I was in a
dark space in my life. It felt a lot like depression, although I think it was
something else called “acedia”. The darkness weighed most heavily in the early
morning. I would wake up at 2 AM with a deep heaviness pressing me down. Then,
one morning during my morning prayers, I heard Jesus’ voice saying, “That
weight is all the stuff that has been between us, pressed out of you. I want
nothing between us.” I remember clearly my immediate internal response,
“Neither do I.” I knew that my relationship with Jesus was the one thing in a
hard world that was intact and stable, the centre of my life. So, the letter
from Jesus, which I wrote to myself.
Letter from
Jesus:
Dear Daryl,
I have been working on you for almost 69 years.
You have made some blunders. You have pleased me greatly. You may or may not
succeed [in the thing that I wrote about]. It doesn’t matter. Not really.
Because you belong to me, and you know it.
Remember that morning I said to you, “I want
nothing between us”? I remember your immediate response, “Neither do I.” That’s
what matters. You might say, that’s all that matters.
I love you – I always have; always will.
“Daryl, son of David, do you love me?” Keep following, my friend.
Jesus
Lent One: March 10
Leader:
Focus
Statement: When we enter the wilderness of wandering and temptation, God’s hand
delivers us. We confess our trust in a saving God.
Texts
Deut 26: 1-10
Firstfruits
26 When you have entered the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance and
have taken possession of it and settled in it, 2 take some of the firstfruits of all that you produce
from the soil of the land that the Lord your God is giving you and put them in a basket. Then
go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his Name 3 and say to the priest in office at the time, “I
declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4 The priest shall take the basket from your hands and
set it down in front of the altar of the Lord your God.
5 Then you shall declare before the Lord your God: “My father was a wandering Aramean,
and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a
great nation, powerful and numerous. 6 But the Egyptians ill-treated us and made us suffer,
subjecting us to harsh labour. 7 Then we cried out to the Lord, the God of our ancestors, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our misery, toil, and
oppression. 8 So the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an
outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. 9 He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a
land flowing with milk and honey; 10 and now I bring the firstfruits of the soil that
you, Lord,
have given me.” Place the basket before the Lord your God and bow down before him.
Luke 4: 1-13
Jesus is tested in the wilderness
4 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and
was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, 2 where for forty days he was tempted by the
devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God,
tell this stone to become bread.” 4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”
5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him
in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 And he said to him, “I will give you all their
authority and splendour; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I
want to. 7 If you worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him
only.’”
9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on
the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw
yourself down from here. 10 For it is written: ‘He will command his angels
concerning you to guard you carefully; 11 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you
will not strike your foot against a stone.’” 12 Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
13 When the devil had finished all this tempting, he
left him until an opportune time.
Steinbach Mennonite Church
10 March 2019
Deut 26: 1-10; Luke 4: 1-13
