Homily for the 1st Sunday in Lent, Year B (2015)

When Luke was 3 years old, he used a particular expression when he was being corrected or being told to do something he didn’t want to do. The expression Luke used was, “I don’t want to hear these truths!” I always was both amused and impressed with his choice of words. There are many times when we do not want to hear the truth about a situation, or someone, or, for that matter, ourselves and so to avoid the truth we try to run away from it. 

Biblically, the place to confront one’s truth is in the desert. Deserts are very vast, arid, forbidding places, which, with the exception of Las Vegas, most of us want to avoid. Deserts have the power of altering us, changing the normal way we live. Being alone in a desert is a very intimidating experience for most people 

The portrait of Jesus that Mark’s gospel paints for us is a Jesus who evolves. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus is very human, very much like you and me. This is a Jesus who expresses the full range of human emotion, from happiness, to exasperation, to anger, to despair. There are no baby Jesus stories, as in Matthew and Luke’s gospels, nor the grand Prologue that we find in John’s gospel. In this earliest of the recorded gospels, it begins with Jesus being baptized in the Jordan by John the Baptist. When Jesus comes out of the water and the Holy Spirit descends upon him, it is as if all of a sudden the Divine nature that had been suppressed for 30 years by Jesus’ humanity bursts forth and Jesus fully realizes who he truly is.

In Mark’s gospel we hear the Holy Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert. Unlike the gospels of Matthew and Luke, where Jesus is “led” by the Holy Spirit to the desert, or John’s gospel where Jesus goes nowhere near a desert, Jesus is coerced into the desert by the Holy Spirit. It is as if the Holy Spirit gives Jesus a swat on the rump and shoves him out into the desert, and says, “Get out there and don’t come back for 40 days!”

Jesus had to go to the desert. In the isolation of the desert Jesus came to know his true self, to hear “his truths.” In facing the challenges of the desert and being tested by Satan Jesus discovered himself and discovered the mission that God the Father had for him.

Each and every one of us has our own desert, a desert that is unique to us. Our deserts are just as foreboding as the one that Jesus faced. In our deserts are nasty surprises. We feel very isolated and overwhelmed by the immensity of our deserts. There are dangers real and unreal there. There are times in the desert in which we may feel abandoned by God and face very real temptations. Our desert might be an illness, a broken relationship, or the death of a loved one. Our desert might be an addiction, unemployment, poverty, homelessness, a diminishing loss of abilities, a loss of security. We don’t willingly choose to be led into our deserts, rather, we must be driven, shoved into them. The deserts of our lives may often be the worst situations in life that happen to us, but often, paradoxically, end up being the best thing that has happened in our lives. Our deserts change us and alter the normality of our lives.

In Psalm 139, the psalmist begins by trying to flee from God,  by trying to flee from the truth about himself, only to find that no matter where he goes, God is already there. The psalmist writes that whether we go to the heavens, into the grave, to the farthest shore, to the edge of the horizon, even to the darkest place on earth, we will find the presence of God. God is all around us, above and below, to either side of us and within us. There is no place on earth or in the universe from which we can hide or flee from God.

The other thing the psalmist observes is the only one that truly knows us is God. God knows our thoughts before they are formed. God knows what we will say before we say it. God knows us so well, that it was God who fashioned us, formed and shaped us as a fetus in our mother’s womb. The only way we will come to know our true self is through God. In order for this to happen, we, like Jesus, must enter the desert.

We need the isolation of the desert. When it is just me, myself, and I, there is nothing to distract us. The isolation allows us the freedom to look at our true selves, to face the truths we don’t want to hear. The scariest thing we may find in our desert is the discovery that we are far from being the person that God shaped and fashioned in our mother’s womb. When we face our truths, we may not like the image that is reflected back to us. Like my 3 year old Luke once said, “I don’t want to hear these truths.”

However, the psalmist reminds us that being unable to flee from God is a good thing. It means that God is very much present to us, especially so in our desert. Jesus did not just encounter Satan in the desert. Jesus encountered the overwhelming love of his Father who sent angels to minister to him. We need to be reminded that not all the “truths’ about ourselves are negative. Each and every one of us possesses very positive and beautiful truths for we are wondrously made by God. As we face our true selves in our deserts, we will find our God loving us through all of our truths, both the good and the bad. As the psalmist expresses, “God, examine me and know my heart, test me and know my concerns. Make sure that I am not on my way to ruin, and guide me on the road of eternity.” 

Welcome to the desert. Welcome to the revelation of our truths. This is a time for the healing of all the brokenness we carry in our lives. This is the time we may find the presence of the God who loves us in wondrous ways.