Luke 4:1-13

Click here to watch the sermon "Wilderness"

 

Since moving to New Mexico I have found myself hiking more than I have ever hiked in my life, and I’ve learned that my favorite kinds of hikes are slot canyons. I marvel at the history embedded in the rocks and the steep walls. I’ve hiked slot canyons both in Jemez at Tent Rocks and last week, I added my third slot canyon to the list in Las Cruces. For several reasons, this most recent  slot canyon was different. My spouse Eric and I should have known from the start, because rather than a well kept trail with a prominent trail head. We started the hike by climbing a fence, with the sign “keep fence closed.” After we successfully climbed over,  the next challenge was finding  the trail. We followed a path looking for any other hikers, but could not see or hear anyone. We started asking ourselves, is this a good idea? Should we be hiking here? Our hike was much different than the  wilderness Jesus encountered, but nonetheless it was a wilderness, an unknown landscape wild and alive.  

 

This story of Jesus is the final part of Jesus’ lengthy introduction and includes this is Jesus’ inaugural act. In Mark his inaugural act is changing water into wine, but here he wanders in the desert, rejecting the devil. From the very beginning Jesus’ responses in this desert tale  tell us that he is someone to be trusted. Even in the midst of the wilderness while he is hungry and tired, Jesus chooses to remain faithful. Jesus could have chosen to leave, or to make bread or bring forth water. Yet, he chooses to stay in the thick of that wilderness. A choice he will make again and again on his journey to the cross. Jesus wrestles with pain, suffering and temptation over and over again. He could have tapped out, he could have backed off, but instead he keeps walking in the wilderness of sin and pain and suffering,  choices that  will ultimately lead to his death. 

 

 Jesus could’ve left  but he chose to stay. 

 

Eric and I tentatively chose to keep going on our hike, reassessing our choice about every 5 minutes. And then out of nowhere, we saw a Cairn. The sight of these stacked stones caused us to have the biggest exhale. A Cairn is the Scottish word for a heap of stones. Back in Neolithic times Cairns were often used for burial mounds and sacred site markers. In our modern age, they are used by hikers to mark out a trail. Be it a burial mound or landmark, a Cairn is a beacon in the midst of the wilderness, a flashpoint to help us find our next right steps.  

 

Jesus chose to stay.  

 

Jesus chose to stay alongside the hurting, the grieving, the poor. He remained faithful in his choices to care for the broken hearted and downtrodden, and those choices begin here in this wilderness, when he chooses to not give in. Jesus chose the wilderness. Jesus chose to be near us, to be in the wilderness with us. Yet even Jesus does not do this alone. The first verse of this story makes that clear” Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, went to the wilderness.” Jesus entered the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew he could not make this journey on his own. Jesus could not do it on his own and dear ones neither can we. Like a Cairn, we need beacons, trailblazers and hand holders in the wilderness. Jesus teaches us we were never meant to journey this path alone.  

 

We are meant to travel together.  

 

Jesus, full of  the Holy Spirit stepped out into the wilderness. Eric and I simply followed the Cairns into the canyon. When you walk far enough into a slot canyon there comes a point where you can turn around and you cannot see the path behind you, and you cannot see more than a few turns ahead of you. The steep narrow wall's curving path follows the fractures of fault lines and erosion. It is both beautiful and unnerving. As the light dwindles and the path becomes more narrow, it is not uncommon for people to turn around, to not want to go forward. they choose to leave the wilderness. Although,  It’s not like you can get lost, you can only choose to go forward or turn around. Either way you will eventually find your way out. However when you do not  know what lies ahead, it can be so easy to want to turn back to what you  know, to leave the wilderness for the comfort of your car.  

 

Sometimes all we want to do is leave the wilderness. 

 

Yet as Christians we know God does God’s work in the wilderness. Abram and Sarai become Abraham and Sarah, The Israelites were brought up from Egypt and led into the wilderness to make a new home. Hagar is provided refuge and water. And Jacob wrestles with God and comes away profoundly changed. God’s work is wilderness work, no matter how we  got there. Some of us choose the wilderness, like Jesus, while others of us find ourselves cast out into it like Hagar. We do not always get to choose how we get there, but we do get to choose if we stay, and if we allow God to be near us, to be a beacon to change our lives. 

 

We do not wander alone. 

  

In a conversation with Kate Bowler, author Parker Palmer talks about what he calls “the tragic gap.”  The tragic gap is the wild and inevitable space between how things are and the way they could be. It’s the wilderness we so often find ourselves in. It's in the waiting rooms, and funeral home parlors. It's our classrooms and grocery stores. It’s our street corners and our bosses office. It’s our family’s dinner table with an empty chair. It’s the loneliness, grief and pain within our hearts that cause them to break. Palmer offers that broken hearts in unfinished times are a beacon for us. He says  there are only two ways for a heart to break. A heart can shatter into  shards that  lie useless on the floor, or we can expose our hearts to little heartbreaks and strengthen our heart muscles, so that heart becomes so tender, so supple that it breaks open into largeness and can be put back together again in a new way. This is the way of the heart Jesus shows us again and again. Not shards of hearts ready to pierce ourselves or one another, but supple hearts broken open, reflecting truth and grace in this world, and building cairns along the way.  

 

Jesus chose to stay in the wilderness, and God invites us to stay too.  

 

If we really wanted,  we could turn around and run from the wilderness. We e could lean into what Palmer calls coercive cynicism, and focus on surviving the system by any means necessary. Or we could flip out into irrelevant idealism, pretending like everything is okay or that will be, even when deep down we know things will never be the same. But that is not the work we are called toward. Rather, God calls us to stand in the gap, to stay in the wilderness we find ourselves in, and our  job is to put one foot in front of the other as we make our way slowly through the gap toward something better. We walk, even with tiny steps, towards healing, and justice with hearts so supple and tender.  We respect our time to rest. We seek the renewal, we need, and we  look for the cairns we need and the cairns we can build. The wilderness is a wild place, but it is wild because it is alive. The story of God and God's people shows us that again and again. 

  

Jesus left that physical wilderness after forty days completely changed. This inaugural and faithful choice he makes sets the tone for the rest of his ministry. He chooses to be with those who are hurting. He chooses to stand in the tragic gap. The inevitable tidal waves of our life and world, and walks that with us. He knows our grief, our pain, our hunger and thirst. and he ensures that we are not alone, stone on stone. Jesus with you in your wilderness, he with all of us in the tragic gap when the forces beyond our control render us speechless, hopeless and stuck, and he beckons us forward to break open our hearts so that they may heal in a new way.  Amen.