First Sunday of Lent

“And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; with thee I am well pleased’” (Mark 1:10-11).

I once read a book titled The Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. In it, this scene goes very differently – Jesus is baptized by John and is being held underwater when the Holy Spirit makes this astonishing pronouncement. As a result, everyone gets to hear what the Spirit says except Jesus. Everyone is stunned, but Jesus has no idea what’s going on. Jesus is a bit perturbed that his Father couldn’t have waited until he was out of the water. I imagine, if it had happened that way, it wouldn’t have made much difference: Jesus already knows who he is, and the voice is really for us anyway.

But I digress.

This reading tells us that Jesus isn’t just some guy hanging out by the Jordan waiting for one of John’s special dunkings. He isn’t just a really enlightened man, or someone we can be exactly like if we try hard enough. He is the Son of God, a Person of the trinity who has a special relationship with the Father and the Spirit. If we want to recognize Jesus, we have to remember that he’s both fully human and fully divine.

For all his divinity, The Spirit chases Jesus right out into the wilderness to be tempted for forty days. This Christ, our Messiah, isn’t promising us an easy road. His certainly wasn’t. Just because the Messiah has come doesn’t mean that temptations will disappear, that hardships will melt away, that the world will suddenly be a place where everyone has enough to eat. While we believe that the world will be redeemed and perfected on the last day, we can’t believe that we only see Jesus in the happy, good parts of life.

Jesus hallows our suffering not because it is good – or to make it good – but by sharing in it. God doesn’t intend for bad things to happen, but he does redeem them by using them for His purposes. Like Jesus in the desert, we have a chance to work with God through hardship because Jesus entered fully into the human experience, including its weaknesses. He calls us to repent, to turn back to relationship with God, even – and perhaps most especially – in the midst of our deepest pain.

Jesus shows us that relationship with God is the key to allowing the Father to transform our suffering for purposes we can’t even begin to understand. Relationship with God is the gateway to a true happiness that includes but does not eliminate our suffering. Because of Jesus, the Beloved Son who went into the desert so we would not have to travel the wilderness alone, the kingdom of God is established in the midst of us.

In the middle of all our strife and suffering, the inheritance of a fallen creation, Jesus is here, ushering in the kingdom, and calling us anew to love.

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).