THE PARISH CHURCH FOR LYTHAM

Last Updated 19/05/2008 22:34:05

The Wilderness Inside; A Sermon for Lent

Matthew 4 verses 1-11

c. J. Wilkin 2008

The hill of Masada stands one thousand feet above sea level. Like Ayers Rock, it rises almost sheer. Its flat, diamond-shaped top is so huge that you can wander away form the hundreds of tourists and visitors and be quite alone.

I did this, one April afternoon, wandering away in the hot sunshine to the West Gate, five hundred feet above Flavius Silva’s ramp which did for the Jews. I looked down to the rift valley, across to rock and mountains. And I understood at last the meaning of the phrase “the sound of silence”. You could have heard a pin drop on the mountain opposite.

And for the first time, I understood about the temptations – the silence, the pinnacle, the high mountain and the kingdoms of the world stretched beneath. And I understood too why the early church fathers went into the desert. Because there’s nothing; only you and God. And people still want to do it. Both the Sunday Times and the Sunday Telegraph Travel section have featured the Makhad Trust this year. A week in the Sinai desert with the Bedouin might seem an odd sort of holiday but people are doing it, doing it in search of spiritual renewal and peace.

And that’s the central tension of the Temptations story, isn’t it? Isolation and communion.  Lent isn’t the time when we give up some little pleasure to prove we’re not in thrall to it. It’s no time to think about the outside world at all, let alone feel pleased with ourselves at how good we are at giving it up.

No, it’s the time when we face the wilderness on the inside. The Spirit which has descended on Jesus at his baptism has literally driven him out to do this. It’s obvious to us at this distance that he’s finding out that he’s to reject Jewish ideas of the Messiah riding in on the whirlwind, scattering the Romans to death and perdition and ascending the throne of his father David. It’s obvious to us at this distance that he’s going to find out that Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Messiah is more the picture. . It’s obvious that the world’s power, rejected, will of course lead him only one way as the ministry darkens and the disciples desert.

But it can’t have been obvious to him. Hence the wilderness.

Just as Easter is only meaningful to us after we’ve suffered and can see our own death, rescue and resurrection, so too Lent is only meaningful if, I think, we’re prepared to do two things: firstly, face the wilderness inside and, secondly, recognise and accept that the isolation, loss, grief and temptation to despair which comes with the wilderness inside is part of our Christian training, indeed that we cannot properly set out upon the Christian life without doing it. The valley of humiliation, the Slough of Despond, Doubting Castle, Giant Despair, even the valley of the shadow of death, are the landmarks of the way which begins at the little wicket gate. These landmarks tempt us to cruelty, despair, cynicism, power-seeking and hatred. They tempt us to banish all that we actually hold most dear – love, communion, joy, self-giving. They bring with them panic, emptiness, cold fear and isolation. Violent rage,  and jealousy cold as the grave.

And they tempt us away from our Christian certainties: the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. They are indeed the troops of Midian, prowling round and round in the silence.

The troops are different for all of us, aren’t they? Some are common: the fear of old age, the fear of powerlessness, the fear of loss. But some are our own individual wild beasts that threaten to devour us and they are known only to us.

So if Jesus, like us, did time in the wilderness, if for him, like us, it was part of the training, what does that mean for us when we come out of the wilderness?

Well, perhaps we might look at what he does. First, he fortifies himself for what lies ahead. The angels wait on him: he needs food and drink and to get his strength back.

Then he starts his ministry near the Lake, finding himself somewhere to live at Capernaum. Then he needs help; so he calls on Simon, Andrew, James and John.

He can’t do it without them. He proclaims the kingdom, heals the sick and attracts such crowds that he needs to go up into the mountains in order to talk to the disciples at all.

The common factor in what he does? Communion.  Fellowship.  Helping others. Looking after our bodies so they don’t let us down. Love is communion. Love is the opposite of isolation. To love is to give. To give is to be. To be is to be fully ourselves with fears faced and to come out not victorious perhaps but at least not tested beyond our strength. That’s communion.

“Do not be surprised,” says the first letter of Peter, “when the fiery ordeal comes upon you. But rejoice, in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when His glory is revealed.”

Like Paul before us, we shall realise in the end that Lent and Easter are one: “…sorrowful yet always rejoicing; …poor and yet making many rich;…having nothing and yet possessing everything.”

Amen.