40 Days of Lent: On the Road Again with Jesus, Day 2

The Wilderness is something which few of us have ever encountered. Yet the Wilderness is a critical and important starting point in the story of Jesus as he moved from his construction business into a traveling, itinerant ministry and as he moved from waiting and preparing to moving forward and doing.

It was in the Wilderness that John the baptizer appeared in anticipation of Jesus’ arrival. (Matthew 3: 1-3) And after Jesus had arrived and been baptized there, it was on to yet another Wilderness that Jesus was led for spiritual nurturing and maturing. (Matthew 4:1) So, according to these two citations, the Wilderness is conducive to discovering, knowing, and learning to follow God better.

Most people would say the opposite. We like padded pews, the coffee on, and the thermostat set at a perfect 72 degrees, with no drafts! It even becomes possible, after so much such pampering, to mistake familiarity and comfort themselves for God. And if I am controlling my environment, if I have been able to successfully tame my environment, and remove all impediments to my personal safety from my environment, then what does that make me? I become kind of my own God in that case: God(me) and God (the pleasant and harmless environment)) and God (the status quo).

A god in three parts, blessed (perverse) trinity!

Thus, the need for Wilderness. The unpredictability of that which is wild reminds us that we are not in ultimate control- not at all. The real world in which humans live does, in fact, have sharp edges: tsunamis, tornados, and tooth decay among many others. The Wilderness doesn’t merely remind us that we are one part of a much larger and complicatedly inter-related scenario, it forces us to act within that scenario, or die. The Wilderness, in short, gives us many (infinitely many more) opportunities to discover God and God’s Continuing Creation, and our part in that Continuance, than any thermostat ever will.

Behind the noise of the familiar, even beyond the endless noise of our yapping egos, there is the voice of He/She/That Which will whisper in our ears, and in our hearts, “Beloved..”

40 Days of Lent: Day 9

1Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

3In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”

4″How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

5Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

What was it, I must ask, that caused Nicodemus to take a chance with his reputation and status by daring to go by himself to visit with the itinerant rabbi, Jesus? What did Jesus have that Nicodemus wanted?

There was an authenticity about Jesus- Nicodemus said it was obvious that he was from God, with God. When Jesus said that this came from being born again, Nicodemus (as would anyone) misunderstood. Nicodemus knew of only one way of being born, while Jesus was telling him about another.

Many of us think we know what born again means, but I know how traditions and unexamined “truths” can get in the way of real understanding, so I wonder, too, if we don’t sometimes misunderstand that phrase as badly as Nicodemus did upon first hearing it?

In some churches it means saying a prayer, in others it comes from walking down the aisle in response to an emotional message by the preacher. In still others it means performing ancient rituals- baptism, cathecism, confirmation. The commonality of all those methods is that a person publicly declares Jesus to be “the way, the truth, and the life,” repent of his/her sin and, thus, become a child of God, and not only a child of human parentage.

That has always seemed too superficial to me..sorry. Birth is a traumatic process and I think really becoming a child of God- becoming real, becoming authentic- is a process. It’s a process of enlightenment- step by step, little steps, big steps, a journey that never ends. I often say that I have been born again and again and again; I am not the same follower of Jesus as I was that first day I believed. In fact, it is more like I am continually being born- I am always moving from belief to faith, from knowledge to understanding, from moments of happiness to longer periods of serenity.

And I do that by getting better- more sensitive- to that blowing wind Jesus referred to: the ruach of God. Ruach is God’s spirit, God’s breath, God’s wind. And we don’t know where we will be moved by it. It may be toward a sunset, or a lifetime of sacrificial work on behalf of others. It may be toward a special sermon (it’s possible!).  More likely, it will be toward the eyes, the presence of one in whom we can see God’s presence already, or in deeper ways than we have so far perceived God’s presence in ourselves. It might even be in the love of a dog, the breath taking of a wildflower field, or the singing of children.

The point is we don’t know how that wind will blow or where it will come from, which makes every moment the most important one we have ever lived. Because this might be the moment when we become authentic, real, whole, complete, and born again, like Jesus.

40 Days of Lent: Day 6

Mark 1: 9-11 (from The Message): At this time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. The moment he came out of the water, he saw the sky split open and God’s Spirit, looking like a dove, come down on him. Along with the Spirit, a voice: “You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride of my life.”

The gospel writers, Mark among them, are not reporters. They were not there- on the scene- during every event that they go on to write about. They were compilers, arrangers, transmitters of the stories of Jesus to particular audiences.

Mark is relating here some things that apparently only Jesus experienced at his baptism: a  vision (the sky splitting open and something “like a dove” descending on him) and a voice. This testimony of Jesus is the beginning of Mark’s gospel of Jesus. This is, for Mark, the beginning of Jesus’ “Sonship.” It was- it seems- a bestowal of status on Jesus by God.

Matthew and Luke would claim that Sonship to be biological- with the impregnation of Mary through God’s Holy Spirit. I have to wonder why such a significant event was not even mentioned by Mark, while the personal testimony of Jesus was. Had Mark not heard the story of Jesus’ in utero origins? Or had he heard it and rejected as a legend connected to other ancient stories of virgin births?

I don’t know the answer. But I see Mark’s editorial role here as making Sonship itself accessible to anyone who would, as Jesus had, accept the message of John the Baptist to “Repent!” Here’s the Baptist’s message, told by Mark (Mark 1: 4, New International Version): And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

The arrival of Jesus at the Jordan River had been being anticipated by John. Something about his third cousin had impressed John, maybe for much of his life (he was six months older than Jesus). John claimed that Jesus was greater than himself and would baptize others not with water, but with the Holy Spirit.  If Jesus believed this of himself as well, then he would have had need of that Holy Spirit to baptize others with, and would have been highly sensitive and receptive to the receiving of it.

I think this is the supremely important part of the story of which Mark wrote: Jesus was ready for this status; he was willing and wanting to receive it. As he would go on in his life and ministry to prove, it was not a matter of satisfying a ravenous ego that he sought this status; rather, it was a genuine calling- a desire that others would know the real nature of God. Jesus wanted, it seems to me, for others to know that they, too, were loved by God, and that God had pride in them, too!

That’s a pretty radical desire to have within a faith community that was rife with judgement on the part of the priestly leaders. It’s a revolutionary role to want to assume in a culture where the “poor in spirits” were left out of everything.

But, after his baptism by John, Jesus left the Jordan River community, went into the wilderness for 40 days, emerged at one with God, and went on to demonstrate that others could indeed live in the love and pride of God, free of the burdens of guilt, and also at one with God.

That was impressive to Mark.

It’s impressive to me, too.

The Nativity- according to Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nope, he doesn’t say a thing about it. Nor does John. For them, the story of Jesus’ birth, as told by Matthew and Luke (in different ways), was not a part of the story which needed to be told.

Now, given the big deal we make over Christmas, doesn’t that seem odd? It might be argued that each gospel was a part of a whole, since that’s how we read and apply the four New Testament books. If that was truly the case, though, wouldn’t the Matthew and Luke stories about the birth, or about numerous other episodes in Jesus’ life, be a bit more congruous? Wouldn’t you think that all the facts they wrote about would line up in perfect agreement?

In fact, each gospel was a stand alone project. There is no reason to assume- none!- that gospel writing was a group endeavor. Each was written by a different person, for a different audience, with differing motivations. Obviously, Luke and Matthew shared some source material for their gospels- the book of Mark and a collection of stories and sayings about Jesus known as the ‘Q’ source- but even those sources were specifically reshaped for the particular messages Matthew and Luke were writing.

For Mark and John, the Messiahship of Jesus began at his baptism; thus, no ‘away in the manger’ stories. That is not a minor point to be passed over on our way to Luke 2:1 or Matthew 1:18. For Mark and John, “becoming” the son of God was the important part of the story, not being “born” the son of God.

Personally, I like that viewpoint because it gives me a shot at the same status.