February 18, 2024 – Lent 1
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Mark 1:9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Six years and one month ago, we pulled up stakes in New York and resettled here in New Cheshire. It was the adventure of a lifetime because it was such a huge change. There were times when we wondered if we could do it. Some of you wondered if we could do it. And not a few of our friends back in New York wondered, out loud, if we could do it.
A few months after the move, we were back in Manhattan for brunch with a group of old friends. And they were very curious about how we were doing it. And we were ready to tell them. First, we told them all about our new house with its guest rooms and invited them to come for the weekend. We told them about our spacious yard and how Ella our dog, who had never been territorial before, had happily claimed every inch of it for herself. And we told them about you – your warmth and welcome and excitement about the future. We waxed on about this beautiful historic building in the center of town that we all call home. We regaled them with stories about our long walks on the Farmington Canal Trail, and exploring New Haven, and about the sublime delight of coffee ice cream at Sweet Claude’s.
Finally, one of them asked, “So, what’s the biggest challenge?” I remember that I didn’t have to think long or hard before I answered. “Well,” I said, ‘I suppose it’s how dark and quiet the nights are. It’s too quiet. And it’s disconcerting.
You see, I had spent more than two decades in the city that never sleep, and is never completely quiet, and is certainly never completely dark. And I had lived in large apartment buildings constantly surrounded by other people and the sounds of their lives.
I told them about how our house made strange noises at night as it settled. There were odd creaks and groans and sometimes pops and bangs that spooked me. And there were wild animals, I told them, just outside the door.
Six years and one month later, I have long lost my fear of living “in the country.” But I am still afraid. I have just traded one fear for another. Because there is always something to be afraid of; always something I cannot control; always something lurking out there… like a wild beast.
Maybe you never considered that a minister, of all people, struggles with fear. But we do – because we’re human. And we know, from the experience of pastoral ministry, that our faith is not some kind of talisman that protects us from all those things that go bump in the night. And we know that we can believe all the right things and do all the right things and love Jesus with our whole hearts… and still get sick. We can still lose our jobs. Relationships can still collapse. Age is still unrelenting. Death is still inevitable -– even though we pray and hope and believe.
Which, of course, begs the question: why, exactly, do we pray? And what can we hope for when we do?
The Gospel of Mark is the oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels. It is spare and sparse and to the point. And Mark loves the word “immediately.” He has Jesus rushing from one event to another with hardly a breath in between. Take, for example, his telling of the Temptation of Jesus. It takes all of two verses!
This story is always heard on the first Sunday in Lent, because the symbolism is too rich to ignore. Jesus was tempted for 40 days. And our Lenten journey is 40 days long. Jesus faced his mortality in the wilderness. And in Lent, we face our own with the words: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Jesus was tempted to find ultimate comfort in the material world. And in Lent, we seek to be more conscious of our treasures in heaven.
Mark’s temptation account starts with the baptism of Jesus - a dramatic event during which the heavens are ripped in two and the Spirit descended like a dove. Then the voice of God announced that Jesus was the Beloved Son, with whom God was well pleased. This was a moment of pure joy and clarity and purpose.
But that moment of joy didn’t last long, because Mark reports that immediately afterwards, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. This was not some gentle invitation by a gentle Holy Spirit. The verb here implies that Jesus was thrown out into or cast out into the wilderness. The implication was that it was all involuntary… which sounds oddly familiar of those times in our lives when we are thrust into an experience of suffering. It is often sudden and against our wills.
Because Mark’s account is only two verses long, his telling of the Temptation of Jesus lacks all the details we have come to know about what Satan said to Jesus and how Jesus responded to each temptation. But Mark adds a unique detail, not found in any other Gospel. All the gospel writers mention angels coming to minister to Jesus, but Mark alone adds this intriguing tidbit: “and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
In the entire New Testament, the wild beasts are only mentioned two other times. And each time they are, the implication is that they are deadly and dangerous. So, imagine Jesus in the middle of the night, out in the country, hearing the panting in the darkness and rustling in the bushes and seeing the glowing eyes that watched him as he prayed.
And here’s something else. In the other Gospels, the angels only arrive at the end of Christ’s Temptation. They are his reward for a job well done. But in Mark, there is no sense of a strict chronology. Mark puts the angels and the wild beast together, in one place and at the same time: “… he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
The wilderness of our lives – it is the natural habitat of wild beasts. And it is the habitat of the angels of the Lord. Wild beasts and angels, fear and grace, want and plenty: they all live side-by-side. That is our experience of life. And that is our experience of faith.
The great preacher Otis Moss, Senior Minister of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a largely African American megachurch, tells a story that his father, another pastor, used to tell. One day his father asked one of his elderly parishioners: “How are you doing today, Mother? To which the woman replied: “Well, pastor, I’m living somewhere between ‘O Lord’ and ‘Thank you Jesus!’” In other words, between the wild beasts and the angels.
Our lives are not neatly divided between good days and bad days. They are simply the days of our lives – messy and precious; complicated and holy.
And Lent is about embracing that dichotomy. Lent is about facing the beasts so that we might know something of the angels. Because the angels always come when we need them most. They come with extraordinary kindness when we are sick. They comfort us when we are confused. They are a hand on our shoulders or a gentle hug or a shared tear. And every now and again, the angelic presence is so strong that they leave in their wake that peace that surpasses all human understanding.
I wish I could tell you that you will always be rescued from the wild beasts. But I can’t. What I can tell you, however; what I can promise you on the authority of Gospel, is that you will never go to that dark and foreboding place alone. There will always be angels there to minister to you. And there will always be Jesus, who traveled this road before us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
Mark 1:9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
Six years and one month ago, we pulled up stakes in New York and resettled here in New Cheshire. It was the adventure of a lifetime because it was such a huge change. There were times when we wondered if we could do it. Some of you wondered if we could do it. And not a few of our friends back in New York wondered, out loud, if we could do it.
A few months after the move, we were back in Manhattan for brunch with a group of old friends. And they were very curious about how we were doing it. And we were ready to tell them. First, we told them all about our new house with its guest rooms and invited them to come for the weekend. We told them about our spacious yard and how Ella our dog, who had never been territorial before, had happily claimed every inch of it for herself. And we told them about you – your warmth and welcome and excitement about the future. We waxed on about this beautiful historic building in the center of town that we all call home. We regaled them with stories about our long walks on the Farmington Canal Trail, and exploring New Haven, and about the sublime delight of coffee ice cream at Sweet Claude’s.
Finally, one of them asked, “So, what’s the biggest challenge?” I remember that I didn’t have to think long or hard before I answered. “Well,” I said, ‘I suppose it’s how dark and quiet the nights are. It’s too quiet. And it’s disconcerting.
You see, I had spent more than two decades in the city that never sleep, and is never completely quiet, and is certainly never completely dark. And I had lived in large apartment buildings constantly surrounded by other people and the sounds of their lives.
I told them about how our house made strange noises at night as it settled. There were odd creaks and groans and sometimes pops and bangs that spooked me. And there were wild animals, I told them, just outside the door.
Six years and one month later, I have long lost my fear of living “in the country.” But I am still afraid. I have just traded one fear for another. Because there is always something to be afraid of; always something I cannot control; always something lurking out there… like a wild beast.
Maybe you never considered that a minister, of all people, struggles with fear. But we do – because we’re human. And we know, from the experience of pastoral ministry, that our faith is not some kind of talisman that protects us from all those things that go bump in the night. And we know that we can believe all the right things and do all the right things and love Jesus with our whole hearts… and still get sick. We can still lose our jobs. Relationships can still collapse. Age is still unrelenting. Death is still inevitable -– even though we pray and hope and believe.
Which, of course, begs the question: why, exactly, do we pray? And what can we hope for when we do?
The Gospel of Mark is the oldest and the shortest of the four Gospels. It is spare and sparse and to the point. And Mark loves the word “immediately.” He has Jesus rushing from one event to another with hardly a breath in between. Take, for example, his telling of the Temptation of Jesus. It takes all of two verses!
This story is always heard on the first Sunday in Lent, because the symbolism is too rich to ignore. Jesus was tempted for 40 days. And our Lenten journey is 40 days long. Jesus faced his mortality in the wilderness. And in Lent, we face our own with the words: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” Jesus was tempted to find ultimate comfort in the material world. And in Lent, we seek to be more conscious of our treasures in heaven.
Mark’s temptation account starts with the baptism of Jesus - a dramatic event during which the heavens are ripped in two and the Spirit descended like a dove. Then the voice of God announced that Jesus was the Beloved Son, with whom God was well pleased. This was a moment of pure joy and clarity and purpose.
But that moment of joy didn’t last long, because Mark reports that immediately afterwards, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. This was not some gentle invitation by a gentle Holy Spirit. The verb here implies that Jesus was thrown out into or cast out into the wilderness. The implication was that it was all involuntary… which sounds oddly familiar of those times in our lives when we are thrust into an experience of suffering. It is often sudden and against our wills.
Because Mark’s account is only two verses long, his telling of the Temptation of Jesus lacks all the details we have come to know about what Satan said to Jesus and how Jesus responded to each temptation. But Mark adds a unique detail, not found in any other Gospel. All the gospel writers mention angels coming to minister to Jesus, but Mark alone adds this intriguing tidbit: “and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
In the entire New Testament, the wild beasts are only mentioned two other times. And each time they are, the implication is that they are deadly and dangerous. So, imagine Jesus in the middle of the night, out in the country, hearing the panting in the darkness and rustling in the bushes and seeing the glowing eyes that watched him as he prayed.
And here’s something else. In the other Gospels, the angels only arrive at the end of Christ’s Temptation. They are his reward for a job well done. But in Mark, there is no sense of a strict chronology. Mark puts the angels and the wild beast together, in one place and at the same time: “… he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”
The wilderness of our lives – it is the natural habitat of wild beasts. And it is the habitat of the angels of the Lord. Wild beasts and angels, fear and grace, want and plenty: they all live side-by-side. That is our experience of life. And that is our experience of faith.
The great preacher Otis Moss, Senior Minister of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a largely African American megachurch, tells a story that his father, another pastor, used to tell. One day his father asked one of his elderly parishioners: “How are you doing today, Mother? To which the woman replied: “Well, pastor, I’m living somewhere between ‘O Lord’ and ‘Thank you Jesus!’” In other words, between the wild beasts and the angels.
Our lives are not neatly divided between good days and bad days. They are simply the days of our lives – messy and precious; complicated and holy.
And Lent is about embracing that dichotomy. Lent is about facing the beasts so that we might know something of the angels. Because the angels always come when we need them most. They come with extraordinary kindness when we are sick. They comfort us when we are confused. They are a hand on our shoulders or a gentle hug or a shared tear. And every now and again, the angelic presence is so strong that they leave in their wake that peace that surpasses all human understanding.
I wish I could tell you that you will always be rescued from the wild beasts. But I can’t. What I can tell you, however; what I can promise you on the authority of Gospel, is that you will never go to that dark and foreboding place alone. There will always be angels there to minister to you. And there will always be Jesus, who traveled this road before us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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