Lent 1 March 1, 2009

Are you struck by the rapid-fire contrasts in our Gospel for today? I am, yet, at the same time, I believe the contrasts themselves are a part of the message Mark has for us.

Jesus’ baptism must have been a real "high water" ecperience for him. It certainly wasn’t one of your "run of the mill", every day occurences. Hear again how Mark describes it for us: "And just as (Jesus) was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.’" (Mk 1:10-11)

Try to imagine how you would feel if you had this same experience. What would your reaction be? For me personally - after I had picked myself up from the floor - I would probably have thought, "Wow! This is great! Let’s go have a party to celebrate the occasion."

In contrast, Mark gives us absolutely no clue as to Jesus’ feelings about his baptism experience. What he does tell us is this: "And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him." (Mk 1: 12-13) I don’t know about you, but a forty day wilderness survival camp with Satan and wild beasts as companions isn’t my idea of a party!

Matthew and Luke both give us the details about Jesus’ battle with Satan which Mark omits. Satan tempts Jesus to use the world’s ways to accomplish the mission he understands the Father to be calling him to. 1) Focus on peoples’ physical needs - feed them, heal them, make them dependent on you - to win them over for the kingdom. "Turn these stones into bread" (Mt 4:3, Lk 4:3)

Wow them with a super-human act of daring do. "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down (from the pinacle of the Temple. God won’t allow you to be hurt. I’ll even draw a crowd for you to make sure the word gets out." (Mt 4:5-6, Lk 4:9-10 -paraphrased)

Do it by means of worldly power and influence. "(I will give you all the kingdoms of this world), if you will fall down and worship me." (Mt 4:8-9, Lk 4:5-7) Drawing on his knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures, which he probably learned in the synagogue as a boy and young adult, Jesus rejects Satan’s proposals and sends him packing.

What comes next is even more remarkable. Learning that John the Baptist has been arrested and thrown in prison, Jesus goes out preaching the same message of repentance that put John there, but with an enhanced urgency. John had focused on preparation for a coming kingdom. Jesus proclaims the kingdom as present here and now. "The time is fulfilled," Jesus says, "and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news." (Mk 1:14-15) The footnote in my NRSV Bible says that the Greek actually reads "the kingdom of God is before your face". You can’t get much more urgent that that!

So, if the kingdom of God was "before your face" when Jesus was preaching the good news 2,000 years ago, where is it today? I’d like to suggest that it’s still right here before our faces. In fact, according to Robert Capon’s book Kingdom, Grace, Judgement, there never has been and never will be a time when the kingdom isn’t present in this world.

Here’s just a taste of Capon’s reasoning, based on the parable of the leaven (the yeast) as found in both Matthew 13 and Luke 13: "The kingdom, Jesus tells his hearers, is like ‘leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour (about a bushel - 80 pounds), until the whole was leavened.’ ... ... Just as yeast enters into the dough by being dissolved in the very liquid that makes the dough become dough at all - just as there is not a moment of the dough’s existence, from start to finish, in which it is unleavened dough - so this parable insists that the kingdom enters the world at its creation ... ... For by, with, and in the very fluids that make and restore creation - by the waters on whose face the Spirit moved, by the mist that watered Eden, by the paschal blood on the doorposts, by the blood of the covenant on Sinai, by the waters of Jordan in Jesus’ baptism, by the blood and water from his side on the cross, and by the river of life in the New Jerusalem - the Word, who is the yeast that leaves not one scrap of this lump of a world unleavened, has

been hidden in his creation. He did not start being hidden in 4 B.C., all he did in his time on earth was to show us his face and tell us his name - and send us out to share that good news with everybody." (Capon, p 99, 101)

The beginning verses of John’s Gospel support Capon’s reasoning. John tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ... ... He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. ... ... And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth." (Jn 1: 1-4, 10, 14)

Our view of the world and of God’s actions in and for it tends to be limited by the brevity of our lives and the limits of our experiences. God’s view is unlimited. In Jesus, God invites us to join him in taking the long view, and he offers us life eternal with him in which to be able to do so. Look on this season of Lent as a time God gives us to prepare to celebrate with joy the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the seal of God’s promises to us.