02.20.2021 Homily

 

I need to make a disclaimer before I begin that the ideas that I'm going to be offering to you were ideas that were offered to me by a Benedictine Sister, Laureen Virnig from St. Joseph, Minnesota. So I want to give her credit for or blame for whatever there is.

St. Mark is the Ernest Hemingway of the gospels. He writes in simple, short sentences. He also went to the Joe Friday of Dragnet school. His writing is sparse and as Sergeant Friday would say, it's the facts. Just the facts. Short though, his gospel is Mark wastes no words. And in a very few words offers the reader a powerful proclamation of the kingdom of God and of the identity of Jesus. In today's gospel, Jesus comes to the region of Galilee and there he is baptized by John in the Jordan River and coming up out of the water, the spirit descends upon him and a voice is heard from heaven saying, "You are my beloved. I am well pleased with you."

And then that same spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Now, that's an important word. He didn't invite Jesus, he didn't encourage Jesus. He drove him into the wilderness. The word implies the overwhelming need Jesus had to go into solitude to figure out what he was to do and to do that before dealing with the religious and the other leaders of his time. Mark tells us that once Jesus was in the wilderness, he was tested by Satan. He was with the wild beasts. He didn't run away from them. He was with them. And God's messengers, the angels, they supported him.

The wilderness is a place of solitude, a place of introspection, a place for making decisions. When one goes into the wilderness, one goes to face the demons, wrong jealousy, anger, lust, all that that holds me and holds me tight. And one goes to face the wild beasts, the spirit of violence, the revenge, the hatred that sees within me. Those images, those pictures, those pieces of art that describe Jesus in the desert, very often have this dark, shadowy figure with horns depicting Satan, but that's not what the scriptures tell us. The power of evil is found in the wild beast and in the demons, the wild beasts within me and the demons within me. The scripture says Satan is always standing at the door, always ready for an opportunity to enter.

In the wilderness, I'm called upon to name the demons and to name the beasts. This is where I learned some uncomfortable truths about myself. The wilderness is a place where God's word challenges me to look at who I am and to whom I belong. I meet the beast and I face the demons and I allow them to reveal what is trapped within inside me. If I stay in the wilderness long enough, if I stay and do not run away, I will reach the deep place where the unshakeable and undeniable truth awaits. One has to be in the wilderness for a protracted period of time because this process does not happen in the twinkling of an eye. It is a process and it's worked out day after day after day.

Jesus' time in the desert and the wilderness was not an hour's worth or a day's worth or a week's worth, but 40 days that he was in the desert with the beasts and the demons. And what I come to learn if I stay there long enough, if I don't run away, if I'm willing to allow the demons and the beast to speak, what I come away with is the truth. The truth that I am loved and the truth that I am embraced and held by God just as I am. Jesus, he emerges from the wilderness and he takes his disciples with him so that they might witness the transfiguration. That they might see into the very soul of Jesus, the Son of God. And once these two events take place, once the event of the wilderness and the event of the transfiguration take place, Jesus knows clearly what he must do and who he truly is.

The wilderness is the place where each person faces the beasts and demons within and out of which emerges a person rooted in one's humanity and in one's destiny. Coming from the wilderness, one witnesses the truth spoken by Henry James. All people are once born... Some fortunate people are twice born. Emerging from the wilderness is one's second birth.