The Revised Common Lectionary puts the readings for Jesus’ baptism by John and his subsequent forty days in the wilderness at the beginning of Lent.
The symbolism of that makes sense in a way (you might be interested in Our Temptations, a piece I posted in 2010). Unfortunately, it also leads most people to think of that episode as a preparation for Easter. While that may be true for us, it wasn’t for Jesus.
If we follow the chronology of the New Testament mythos, that story should come now, as the first event we have “record” of following the Nativity (with a reminder that we’re talking about the mythos of Jesus’ life, not the historical accuracy).
For me, that gives the story another perspective entirely. It’s one thing to prepare for some great effort. Athletes do it all the time when they train for a competition. So do politicians, or doctors, or firefighters. Or many of us when preparing for a visit from our in-laws.
But Jesus wasn’t steeling himself to undergo some great trial. He was being tested to see if he could resist the temptation to use the power he’d been given to circumvent the day to day frustrations of bringing the Message of the Christ to a society and a world that didn’t understand it, and that was, more often than not, openly hostile to it.
Could he raise his hand only to heal, to comfort, and to encourage? Could he use his voice only to discuss and persuade and instruct? Could he accept that it would be by virtue of faith that what he was offering would be accepted, and not by supernatural “miracles” straight out of Moses?
I’ve had considerable personal reason to think about this aspect of the story of the forty days in the wilderness. When I was diagnosed with my thymoma, I had to prepare myself for a “great effort” of sorts. One of the first oncologists to talk to me told me straight out that I needed to get ready to fight “the greatest battle of my life.”
He was right. But he was also wrong.
Not that the surgery and recovery were easy. But they had a definite start, climax, and finish. After which, although there were (and are) certainly ongoing follow-ups, I returned to a more-or-less normal life. A year ago, however, I was hit with a myasthenic crisis and diagnosed with a number of auto-immune related symptoms. Unlike the thymoma, these will be with me for the rest of my life. They gnaw away at what I’m able to accomplish daily. They sap my energy and drain my enthusiasm. If I could fix them as easily as changing a few stones into bread, I’m honest enough to say that I’d find it very difficult to refrain.
In the same way, Jesus, in the wilderness, had to choose. Not whether or not to go through the so-called Passion. That question comes up later, in the Garden of Gethsemane. But Jesus had to choose whether or not he could trudge the roads day after day, reaching out to those who the priests and rabbis and Pharisees, the Romans and kings and centurions, had dismissed as worthless. He had to decide if he could send his disciples out to preach the message of agapé relationship with Theos, with God, knowing that they would often have to walk away from a place, shaking the dust from their sandals because they were rejected.
The question for us today is little changed.
It’s sometimes said of marriage that it isn’t the big things that make if fail. Families can pull together in the face of adversity in amazing ways. It’s leaving the top off of the toothpaste tube or leaving the toilet seat up that eventually manages to smother the flame.
There are times when the Jesus of history, regardless of what the “reality” of his story was, must have felt the same way. Times when he must have felt that, if people weren’t going to listen, why should he bother to keep trying?
For us, it’s tempting to compromise our principles just a “little bit.” Especially when, no matter how we try to hold fast to them, no one seems to hear our “message”, to appreciate our effort, or, even if they do, to care.
How do we deal with a difficult colleague who day after day makes the same argument, throws up the same obstacles, no matter how many ways we try to work with them? How do we tell our children that they don’t have to subscribe to every passing fad of a consumer society to be part of an “in” crowd? How do we reach out to others to offer a compassionate hand without becoming overwhelmed by the number of hands that are thrust in our direction?
The New Testament mythos of Jesus’ retreat into the wilderness offers us the metaphor. From it we can draw on the strength of our relationship with God to help us with not only the “great efforts” of our lives, but more to the point, with the daily challenges that tempt us to compromise.
If we, like Jesus, make the choice.
