The Wilderness and the Water of Life

The baptism site.

Lent 1, Year A

Text: Matthew 4:1-11

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Grace and peace be with you all, from God our Father, and his beloved Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.

The scenes described at the end of Matthew 3 and through the beginning of Matthew 4 sound so idyllic. At the end of Matthew 3, we have Jesus at the Jordan River, being baptized by John. The heavens open, the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove, and God – speaking from heaven - proclaims Jesus to be his beloved Son.

Then – in Matthew 4 - the Spirit leads Jesus out into the wilderness for a sort of holy camping trip, lasting forty days and forty nights. Even if camping isn’t your thing, there’s something kind of wonderful about Jesus following the Spirit out into the wilderness. And then, after facing temptation after temptation, today’s story ends so beautifully: “Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.”

To get to the baptism site, we drove north from the Dead Sea, through miles and miles of wilderness similar to what Jesus spent his time in. It’s beautiful, actually, this wilderness – there’s a beauty in its roughness, in its ruggedness (especially when viewed from inside a comfortable tour bus!).

We turned onto a road to head toward the Jordan River – seeing more wilderness, more desolation. As we neared the place set aside for tourists near the baptismal site itself, we began to see a few buildings – well, they used to be buildings - now they are empty shells of buildings, all of them surrounded by fences.

We parked and made our way towards the shoreline. The tourist area is very nice – there’s a lovely outdoor pavilion at the top of the hill before the land drops off at the river’s edge – a pavilion that I suppose is used by Christian pilgrimage groups when they are doing group baptisms. We made our way down to the water, down to the shore of the Jordan River, where Jesus walked, where the Israelites might’ve crossed the Jordan so long ago.

There are now steps going down into the river – steps going down into what is probably the dirtiest body of water that I think I have ever seen. This is where Jesus was baptized? In this muddy river that reeks of pollution and filth? I could hardly imagine it.

We stayed a few minutes and read the story of Jesus’ baptism – we read about the heavens opening and the dove descending, and the voice from heaven. We coordinated a group picture, and then we left. We walked past the beautifully clean pavilion and back to our bus. I was disturbed by the dirty water – and I couldn’t get rid of the image of Jesus standing in that dirty water, being baptized by John.

As we drove through the wilderness back to the main road, our guide mentioned: THIS is the wilderness area that Jesus would have been led to – THIS is it! And I tried to capture back the idyllic image in my head of Jesus leaving the river to follow the Spirit out into THIS wilderness.

Except that this wilderness now has these weird shells of buildings, surrounded by fences. And the fences had signs on them that say things like, “Danger! Mine field!” And it isn’t just one sign on one fence – the more we drove, the more of these signs we saw – more and more signs warning us that to walk in the wilderness now would be a dangerous thing indeed.

For me, this part of our trip replaced the idyllic image of Jesus stepping out of the river, newly baptized, to follow the Spirit into the wilderness with a more disturbing image: Jesus, newly baptized in pollution and filth, following the Spirit into the wilderness, trying not to step on a land mine. These images sat heavily with me – it felt as if the corporate sins of our world somehow landed in one area – and I could almost hear the earth and its people, crying out together because of the pollution and the emptiness.

Of course, when Jesus traveled in that area, the water of the Jordan still flowed freely and the wilderness was wide open space filled with life of its own. It was a different time, but today’s story of Jesus being tempted by the devil shows us that maybe times haven’t changed too much, for humanity is still tempted by sin – sin that entered the world with Adam and Eve (as we heard read earlier) and that is still with us today.

Each year, Lent begins with this story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. But we don’t begin Lent with this story each year simply to remind us that Jesus, too, faced temptation. And we don’t begin Lent with this story each year simply to admire Jesus for resisting the temptations that the devil threw at him.

We begin Lent with this story each year because, in this story, Jesus is living out who it is that God has just proclaimed him to be: the beloved Son of God. And as the beloved Son of God, he can look the devil square in the face and tell him to bug off (which is pretty much what he does, out in the wilderness).

For we don’t live in an idyllic world. We live in a world that has sin – sin that shows itself in a gazillion ways. Sin that’s revealed in power struggles over land – power struggles that result in land mines being buried in the wilderness near the polluted Jordan River. Sin that’s revealed in our own selfishness or our own pettiness - and our own temptations.

On this past Wednesday – Ash Wednesday – I talked about the ashes that we received on our foreheads  in the sign of the cross – the sign that reminds us of God’s great love for us. When we are baptized, that sign is marked on us, marking us as Christ’s own forever. As he is beloved by God, so are we.

When we welcome Mary Katherine into our church family in a few minutes, we will do so around the baptismal font. This is a reminder to her and to all of us that in our baptisms, we are claimed as Christ's own forever and called to serve him.

Luther used to remind himself of his baptism every single day – every day, he reminded himself of this precious gift of God. And it is this water of life that has the last word over us – always. When we face temptations, even when the weight of temptation sits heavily upon us – the water of life has the last word over us – always.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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The wilderness, past the mine fields.