Bible Text: Mark 1: 9-15
And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” 12 And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13 He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, Jesus the Messiah and the Holy Spirit which sends us all into the wilderness of this life. Amen.
This year’s theme for Lent is “Giving it Up” and today, specifically we are considering how we give up “the illusion of control”. The first thing for you to notice is that the title for today is not “giving up control” because in the grand scheme of life, we’ve never really had any — yet we fight, claw, fret and fear just to create the illusion of control. And I believe that today’s gospel truth is calling us to lay such an illusion at the cross of Christ and trust instead in the mercy of God.
Surely it would not take us long to think of the times when we had to simply come face to face with the reality of our deep desire to be able to predict and control every aspect of our lives. A dozen years I learned this lesson, not for the first or last time. I was pregnant with my daughter and had an appointment with my midwife in mid-November. I said, “I think this baby is coming before December”. Now I wasn’t technically due until December 11th, but I thought it would work better in my work schedule and life if she came sooner and I couldn’t imagine getting any bigger. My midwife kindly bit her lip. Then when I saw her a couple weeks later she said, “Hey, I’m on call on Christmas, maybe I’ll get to deliver your baby on Christmas!” Christmas was weeks away and I thought that was a really mean thing to say and I told her so lashing out a woman who had been nothing but supportive and kind to me. Yet on Christmas Eve when I showed no signs to going into labor it was indeed that same kind hearted woman who induced me and led me through delivering my healthy, overdue baby on Christmas morning. Parenting lesson #1: I was not in control.
This morning we have just a few verses from the gospel of Mark in front of us. Typical to his quick, action-packed writing style he crams in a whole lot into just a few sentences. In these verses we see that it is not just Jesus who gives up control here as the Spirit sends him into the wilderness. God also gives up control. That may sound strange to your ears because we often talk about the all powerful nature of God, God almighty! Yes, God is all powerful, all knowing, ever present and this same God chose to be in relationship with humanity starting with the wild-ness of creation to this very day. God never made a covenant that promised to be the great puppet master and we would merely oblije the Divine handling. No, God desires to be in real relationship with very real us, with give and take, relationship that is mutual vulnerable and unpredictable.
To this end, God self-limits that Almighty power giving us freedom, choice, room for rebellion and even room for rejection. No sooner had the voice of the Creator come down from heaven saying “This is my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased” just like a new parent cooing over their baby in the hospital room did the Spirit grab Jesus and send him to the desert where he would be isolated, tempted and tried by Satan.
You see, God gives up control, too.
Now Mark is frustratingly vague here, we do not know anything about what happened in the desert. We do know that after 40 days of great trials and temptations, Jesus emerged ready to work. Jesus came back to Galilee and said, “Repent, the kingdom of God has come near, believe in the gospel.”
Jesus too relinquished control and independence (I think those two often go hand-in-hand) and instead Jesus learned dependence on the Spirit, and also experienced the mercy of God through the ministering of the angels. That is what happened when Jesus actual let go, went to the wilderness and submit himself to the will of the wild Spirit.
The wilderness of our lives may not be desert sands and filled with growling beasts, but they exist, they seem to be getting more and more wild each day. Like the Spirit we send spouses off to the wilderness of work, we engage with the wilderness of our families or communities like church. We send our children to school which has become such a wilderness reality. Our hearts break over the cyber-bullying, the rise of anxiety in children and teenagers, we hear of school shooting after school shooting and our children are trained in lock down drill after lock down drill. We are sent to the wilderness and it is terrifying.
So of course we want to control and predict and we think it will lessen our fear. We think we will tame the wilderness, we act like gods of our own little world falling all over the altar of independence, we try to rule with panicked selfishness.
Remember, God gave up control, too. God chose to be with us in all our wilderness and rebellion and unpredictable sins. When Jesus was sent into the wilderness God went before him as the Spirit and when we walk into an unpredictable wilderness you can know, trust, depend on God who goes before you, the Spirit led sustain power within you.
Brene Brown is a research professor who has more recently become a well known author and speaker who focuses on vulnerability and resilience. In the TED talk that really put her on the map she says something about parenting that I think we can all relate to whether you’re a parent or not, especially on this day when we consider our relationship with God and giving up the illusion of control. Brene said as new parents we hold our brand new babies and see how perfect they are and we fool ourselves into thinking we have so much control and that our only job now is to keep them perfect. So we push and overprotect and make sure the world is perfect and our children our perfect. Maybe even God got caught up in that parental impulse after Jesus baptized, God did say “This is my son the beloved with him I am well pleased” after all!
Then Brene continues and says maintain control isn’t the point, instead the point of holding that baby and raising him or her into a whole person is to communicate to them that they are imperfect, they are hard-wired for struggle and they are worthy of love and belonging. God experienced this too, seeing his only begotten Son sent into the wilderness and God learned, Jesus learned that our God-given nature makes us hard-wired for struggle and resiliency. We walk head first into the wilderness of our lives we believe and worship a God who has done the same! So yes there is struggle, yes there are trials, and yes there is the ministering of angels and the presence of God. We can come out the other side testifying to all God has done and will do. There is beauty in such submission, power in the vulnerability, holiness in being dependent on God alone.
Lay down that illusion of control, rest in the cross of Christ instead.
Remember, Jesus came out of that uncontrollable wilderness and he said…
Repent. Believe the gospel. Which could also be heard as…
Be honest. Trust in God.
Live with humility. Depend on the agents of the Divine to care for you and those you love.
There will be struggle.
See your God given, Spirit empowered resiliency and ability to heal.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, repent. Believe the gospel. Amen.