Lent 1

Now that we can watch all of our favorite shows on DVR, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, or any one of a zillion ways, we no longer have the experience we used to have, of watching something and then turning to a friend and saying, “What did he say?”, “What was that mumble?” or “Where are they going?” Anything we miss, we can just rewind and see again.

This story from Mark’s Gospel, starting us off in the season of Lent, is one we want to rewind, again and again. A lot happens in these seven verses. Mark is known for being the sparest of all the Gospels. He was way less detailed than Matthew and Luke, and he wrote with a kind of “just the facts” approach. In these few verses, Jesus was baptized, made his way into the wilderness, and started his public ministry.

Jesus might want to rewind, too.

One minute, he was being baptized by his cousin, John. Then the heavens are torn apart. Before he had time to even think about that, God’s Spirit descended on him like a dove, a sign of peace. The next minute, that same Spirit drove him into the wilderness. His forty days in the wilderness gave shape to our forty days of Lent.

It’s not clear, in Mark’s bare bones telling of the story, if anyone besides Jesus saw the Spirit descending on Jesus. We can’t even tell if anyone else heard the voice speaking with Him. In Advent, we heard the prophet Isaiah call out to God, O that you would tear open the heavens and come down. (Isaiah 64:1) Now God has done that very thing. The God who was far away is now a lot closer. Mark wanted to be sure we knew that, in Jesus’ life, God is moving closer to humankind. The door is open for us, too.

This same odd thing happens in Jesus’ death. The curtain in the temple — the divider between God and people — was torn in two. The division between God and people was torn away. As scholar Donald Juel said, “the protecting barriers are gone and… God, unwilling to be confined to sacred spaces, is on the loose in our own realm…” (from A Master of Surprise, (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 35-35))

The presence of Jesus is a door opener. At his baptism, at his death, and in our world, too.

In Lent, we follow Jesus into the wilderness. We follow his forty days in the desert with our own forty days of Lent. When we have the patience and the courage to follow Jesus into the wilderness, doors open for us, too. Life may be ripped open, or we may choose the opening, and we find God in both.

Following Jesus into this desert, we realize that we have temptations, too. When we stop and focus on God, we see how addicted we are to our screens, to the instant amusement of our phones, to the quick hit of adrenaline as we win a game online or score a bargain on a purchase.

Like Jesus, we have wild beasts in our lives. They take different forms for us. We are surrounded by the wild beasts of incivility, of prejudice, of demeaning others, of language that tears down instead of building up. There’s plenty of wild rage and anger around us — and within us. When we tame our wild beasts, whatever their shape, we can be much more useful to God. The things that divide us from God get torn away, and we are connected to God in deeper and deeper ways.

Everyone has had a time when life rips you open and empties you out into a desert of confusion… or pain… or change. We choose to deal with an addiction, or to take a step toward a long-held dream. We work up the courage to live differently, even when it’s hard and people don’t understand. We make a choice to end one chapter or begin another, to start a relationship or end one. All of those things open doors in our lives.

None of this is easy. I remember on the way to the hospital with my wife, when it was time to give birth to our son, thinking, “On second thought, I changed my mind.” Nope, too late.

Our lives were about to be ripped open by the joyful, tiring, exasperating, soul-changing work of being parents. You’ve had similar experiences when you go into the military, start a new job or end a job, dive deeply into a committed relationship or realize you need to end one. Things are ripped open in our lives by choice, or by events that happen to us. It happens through joys that demand extra from us, and through sorrows that leave us broken.

Physician and storyteller Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen said that one of her patients, terminally ill with cancer once told her, “I’ve noticed that there are two kinds of people in the world — those who are afraid, and those who are alive.”

Fear is normal when a new door opens, or when something is torn open. We want to go back. And yet Jesus reminds us here that we can only go forward. The old chapter has already been torn away, and we have no choice but to go on to the new. Even Jesus can’t stay in the river, basking in his baptism, and feeling the grace of the Spirit. He has to go out into the wilderness for the first chapter of his work.

In Jesus, in his life and example, God opens a door for us. God tears open the heavens and comes fully into our lives. God opens the door for us to come closer — this Lent, and always. In turn, God wants us to be door openers, too, so others can see God as well.

When life is ready to rip us open, when we’re ready to open a new door, we are meant to remember our baptism. Remember that God is alive in our world, in all our deserts and all our successes, in all our new chapters and all our endings.

“What’s in your wallet”?

That’s the take-away line from commercials for Capital One, a credit card company that wants their card to be front and center in your wallet. But it’s also a good philosophical question. “What IS in your wallet” is a reflection of who you are, where you are, and where you’re headed in your journey of life.

Remember getting your first nice leather wallet as a kid? I know my first wallet made me feel more “grown up.” But what could you actually put in it? Your student ID. Your library card. A few bucks. Your driver’s permit and then later, hopefully, thankfully, your driver’s license. Not much.

Now look at your “grown up” wallet.

It has credit cards (you are a consumer).

It has business cards (you are an employee).

It has health insurance cards (you are a lover who loves your family).

It has loyalty cards (you are loyal).

It has auto insurance cards (you are law abiding and not stupid).

It has mileage plus perk cards (you are a traveler),

It has key access cards (you are an “in” member of your tribe).

It has gym cards (you are fit).

It has discount “big box” store cards (you are “thrifty”).

And don’t forget all those required “photo-id” cards — driver’s license, employee ID, etc.

One thing that is not “in your wallet” is a copy of your baptismal certificate. But we should all have those certificates close by us at all times.

Our truest identity is found in our baptism. We are “baptized” disciples — followers of Jesus, lovers of the greatest lover who ever lived, God-with-us who calls us to serve more than self-serve, to feed more than self-feed, to love others even more than we love ourselves.

Our baptism calls us into ministry. We have a ministry to the Christ-body.

And your baptismal certificate also credentials you as a missionary. So, while we have a ministry to the body, we also have a mission to the world. A “mission trip” is not something you go on for a week or a weekend. A mission trip is another name for the life of a baptized disciple. Are you raising missionary kids? Are you building a missionary family? Do you have a missionary marriage?

Your baptismal certificate is your identity “card” that proclaims your identity as a minister and missionary. If you do still have a paper copy, why not get it reduced to card size and laminated like an ID? Slip that ID into your wallet. That card will be the most genuine, theft-proof identity you could ever put into your wallet. It’s an identity that can never be stolen. So, “What’s in your wallet?”