We know wilderness by so many names.
We often equate wilderness, especially Biblical wilderness, with desert – dry, wide open spaces, very hot or very cold, and with very little shelter or water, places you don’t want to be lost in without supplies or shade or food.
We think of wilderness as dangerous, unfamiliar – places where it is easy to lose our way. If we find ourselves in the wilderness, especially without enough water or food or someone who has been there before, we worry that we may never find our way out again. Wilderness is scary.
Wilderness is lonely.
We know wilderness by so many names.
And I expect that all of us here have been in wilderness at least once in our lives, and may be dwelling there now. Unemployment, a sick child or parent, a cancer diagnosis, addiction, grief, homelessness, first child, empty nest, retirement, a broken friendship or marriage, estrangement from a loved family member, moving to a new place or a new job.
So if you stop and think about it, it’s strange that we set aside 40 days – an entire liturgical season – to walk in more wilderness. We know what it’s like to be lost in a desert without a map or a compass – we know what it’s like to be wandering through a wilderness of our own fear or sorrow or uncertainty. Why would we take these 40 days between Epiphany and Easter to walk through another wilderness, on purpose?
We’ve been walking through the Gospel of Mark for a while now – almost every Sunday, except one brief detour into the Gospel of John back in January. Mark begins in wilderness, with John’s baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan – you heard that story last week. Jesus comes to John in the wilderness, is baptized by water and named beloved by the Holy Spirit, and then the Holy Spirit sends him right back into the wilderness for 40 days – a wilderness where Jesus finds Satan, who tempts him. But also a wilderness where Jesus finds angels, who take care of him.
In today’s reading, eight chapters later in the gospel, Jesus and his disciples have found themselves in a new kind of wilderness. Its name is Caesarea Philippi.
Caesarea Philippi, the city where they are in today’s reading, is not what we would
immediately call a wilderness – it’s a city, for one thing. But it’s significant that Jesus chooses this place for this particular moment in his ministry. Caesarea Philippi was known for being a place of worship and honor for two ancient deities – first of all, Caesar, considered an equivalent to the gods by the Romans. And it was also home to the temple of the Greek god Pan – and if you’ve read any Greek mythology you might remember him as the god of fertility, the god of nature – his name is the root of the word Panic, because it was said that his music could cause terror and confusion in
human beings. So Caesarea Philippi was a city centered on the worship and celebration of gods and political rulers who inspired fear, not compassion. A city that was focused on earthly rule and brutal political power.
What’s not included in this morning’s reading are the questions Jesus has just asked his disciples. Who do the people say that I am? and Who do you say that I am? And Peter, always bursting with enthusiasm and passion, has said, Jesus you are the Messiah that we have all been waiting for, for centuries.
And once again, Jesus’ next move is the not the one that Peter, or the rest of his disciples, are expecting. He has not come to Caesarea Philippi to stage a coup. He has not come to topple either the government of the Romans or the ancient religion of the Greeks. He tells his friends: I will be arrested, tortured and killed. And I will rise again.
And Peter, again, can’t help himself. This doesn’t make any sense. The Messiah isn’t
supposed to be arrested and executed like a common criminal. The Messiah is supposed to come save his chosen people and overthrow the empire. And Peter rebukes Jesus. And in a sense, he tempts him with exactly what Satan tempted Jesus with in his 40 days after baptism, offering him all the kingdoms of the world, telling him, if you leap off the tower, the angels will save you. You are the Son of God, Peter says – you shouldn’t have to die.
So no wonder Jesus throws it right back at him. Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things. The world’s definition of power is not God’s definition of power. Jesus, once again, is telling us, I am not here to conquer. I am here to love and to serve, and to show you how to do the same.
Get behind me, Satan.
United Methodist pastor Robb McCoy, who’s one of the hosts of the Pulpit Fiction – yes, Pulpit Fiction – podcast (I’d recommend it) suggests that Jesus isn’t telling Peter, get away from me, but rather, get on board. Follow me. Learn from me. Get behind me. Take up your cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. Jesus chooses to tell his disciples this not when they are away in an actual wilderness, but while they are in the middle of the world, in full view of its eccentricities, its temptations and its political games. He is redefining “Messiah” for them, while they are surrounded by a city that represents not divine things, but human things. This is the wilderness they are living in and working in – the wilderness of the city and the world.
And in Jesus’ day, taking up the cross could be – and would be, for many of his followers – literal – dying as Jesus did, because of their faith and faithfulness. In more recent times, that is less likely – though the last century has certainly seen its martyrs – Martin Luther King, Jr., for instance.
In our 21st-century lives of faith, we experience death and resurrection of a spiritual kind, and our Lenten journey is part of that experience. We deny ourselves, we empty ourselves a bit, and set aside some of the comforts of the world in order to focus on Christ, to pray, to study, to care for ourselves and each other, to practice disciplines that quiet our minds and open our hearts. We do let go of one life, or part of one life, to receive a greater and more lasting life in Christ. We step into a temporary wilderness, and we know that we are not alone in it, because we travel it with Christ, and with one another.
Last week in his sermon, AJ reminded us that 40 days in the wilderness of Lent isn’t
intended to change God, or to change how God feels about us – “Lent,” he said, “is not about what we do but why we do it, which is to come home to God” – wilderness is the place where we listen for God’s voice, for God’s guidance – it is where we find God’s path.
The other week I had a conversation with a friend about wilderness – the idea that
wilderness is about transformation – wilderness is, yes, a difficult place, but it’s a place that also holds beauty and life, though it is sometimes hard to see those things in it. When we spend time in the wilderness, there is a shift in how we see and experience and move through the world. When we leave the wilderness of Lent – or perhaps when we leave the wilderness of Lent for another wilderness to come, we see differently, listen differently, and understand better what God’s vision is
for us – which is to follow Christ’s example of self-giving love.
Wilderness is not a place for transforming God’s mind and heart, for God’s love does not waver, but it is a place where God works transformation in us and through us, by asking us to take up our cross back out in the wilderness of the world. Amen.
Sermon for the Second Sunday of Lent at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, Va., February 24, 2024.
Art is “Get Thee Behind Me, Satan” by Ilya Repin
