May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: LENT 1
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: March 12, 2000
TEXT: Mark 1:9-13 - Jesus’ Baptism & Wilderness
He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with wild beasts; and angels waited on him.
ISSUE: The story of Jesus’ baptism and his time is the wilderness marks the beginning of the Lenten Season. The Lenten journey is about new beginnings as baptism implies. It is also about being in the wilderness which was (and is) a place of many evil spirits. Wild beasts enhance that image. But Jesus remains faithful to God and is ministered to during his ordeal. He provides for us our hope and the accomplishments that we cannot. He has been in our wilderness, and leads us in hope to renewal and resurrection.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ash Wednesday marked the beginning of the Lenten Season, as does this first Sunday in Lent. It is a season for some personal reflection and a matter of making an effort to be closer to God, and to keep focused on the one to whom we really belong. Through some exercises of self-denial, fasting, giving, and praying, along with some disciplined exercise of scripture reading, or spiritual reading, we are helped to discipline and focus our attention on our relationship with God. Essentially that is what the Lenten Exercise is al about. The Lenten discipline is a matter of being born again and ready to have a new life in the Spirit of God, as its revealed in Jesus Christ. It is a matter of moving from death into new life. Dying to the old, and then leaving the tomb with Christ at Easter.
Notice that the Hebrew Scripture reading this morning is by no stretch of the imagination a dismal story. It’s one of the great stories of hope. Noah has been in the ever famous Ark for the forty day and forty night period, and then finally survives with his family to come back to dry land. It is the age old and wonderful story of a new creation. The old the dirty, the polluted, the evil of the past is washed away, and a new era begins as Noah, his family, and the animals on the Ark begin again. It’s a new creation.
The Gospel selection appointed for this day from Mark, this year, is also the story of a very unique new beginning. In the story Jesus comes to John the Baptist who has been calling for a baptism of repentance. Repentance speaks of the need for change. Jesus comes to John and is baptized. He is immersed into the water, and raised up. Remember that in the Gospel of Mark there is not account of who Jesus belongs to. There is no mention of Joseph, the Virgin Mary, no genealogical list. The birth story of Mark is the baptism. When Jesus comes up out of the water, there is the voice of God: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well please.” (Interestingly enough that voice is the same words of Isaiah 42:1, where the prophet refers to The Lord’s Servant as a beloved son, with whom the Lord is pleased.) Mark is saying that the Paternity of Jesus is God, and Jesus is the servant son. It is a story of good news and hopefulness.
Immediately following the Baptismal birth of Jesus and his paternal identification is the sending of Jesus to the wilderness where he is to prove himself. To have the great honor of being a Son of God, a child of God you had to prove you were worthy. This proving yourself and maintaining you honor was an and is an expectation in the middle eastern culture. So Jesus is sent into the wilderness. Now Mark’s Gospel account gives no explicit temptation events as does Matthew and Luke who embellish the story. Jesus in Mark’s account is not tempted to turn stones to bread, or jump from the Temple pinnacle, or bow down to Satan to receive glory. Mark only indicates that Jesus was in the wilderness forty days and was being tempted by Satan. The forty days is simply an indication that Jesus was tempted for an extended period of time.
It is important to understand that the wilderness of area was considered to be a place of evil spirits. Jesus was in a place surrounded by the evil spirits that were to tempt him, and to displace or to dishonor him as The Beloved Son, the honorable one, with whom God is well pleased. But the scene is also tempered by the presence of both the animals and the angels or messengers. The presence of animals may be a remembrance of the age to come when the lamb and the lion would lie down together in peace. The presence of Jesus in the wilderness of evil spirits is also indicative of a messianic age of a blessed peace. And angels or messengers of God are with him to assist in his struggle against the evil spirits. The Son is not turned out defenseless. He is tempted by the grace and help of God is still with him.
The temptation scene is really something of a prelude to the entire ministry of Jesus. Throughout his entire ministry, Jesus faces significant temptations. There is always the temptation to give up the cause, to remain as a carpenter. There is the temptation to avoid the cross and crucifixion. There is always the temptation to sell out to his teachings for the need of change. There was the temptation to become a military leader, to raise an army, and take on the Romans. There is some thinking that Jesus really had the crowds to attempt an assault on the Romans, which would have been foolhardy, but others did try and failed. But what you have throughout the story of Jesus is faithfulness to be true to healing, restoring out cast people, to the pursuit of wisdom, and a constant expression of sacrificial love. He remained true to his calling, and faithfully committed to his Lord throughout the ministry.
Now the theology of the church teaches that Jesus was without sin. One of the proper prefaces for Lent reminds us that Jesus was “tempted as we are, yet he did not sin.” (P.B. p. 346) The meaning of this statement is simply that there was never a time when Jesus denied God. There was never a time when Jesus was separated from his allegiance to God as his Father, Creator. He was tempted as we are, yet did not sin. He remained in an ever faithful relationship. Thus, he gives the world, and us, to new life. Like Noah starting a new creation through his faithful obedience, Jesus Christ’s faithful obedience gives new hope and meaning to new life. He is the new creation, the new Adam returned to the Garden of Eternal Life.
So my friends, we begin Lent. We are reminded this morning of our baptism. We have been called the children of God with whom God is pleased. We also live in a world that is a lot like the wilderness of evil spirits and many temptations. Now my good people, temptation and sin is not merely a trivial matter of “drinkin’ and smokin’ and stayin’ out carousing late at night.” In the modern affluent world, we are tempted to forget that we are God’s beloved and we are to love God, that is, to keep attached to God with all our heart, soul, and mind. Baptized into Christ we are called to be a people who serve people, family, friends, the weak, the sick, the lost, the least. Americans are great on usurping all the resources of the world. We can be a very violent people. We can hold onto our prejudices like they were something precious. These are our sins as individuals, and also a nation. We share in a corporate guilt as well as our individual guilt and shame.
So, you see this season is the time for getting back into focus as to who we are, and to whom we belong. It’s our time to reclaim who our real father, Creator is. It’s time to get back into spiritual shape. It’s a time for rebirth, renewal, reflection on the past and walking with the assistance of Jesus Christ who ministers to us, angels ministered to him, into the future. It’s our time to get ready to stand under the rainbow of hope, and to return to the Garden of Eden.
In our pessimism and cynicism we may think that can never happen. We in our fallen state, and the world being what it is we’ll never find the Kingdom of God, nor be able to fully step into the Reign of God. Let me close with a story, a true one. When I was a student in Seminary at the University of the South, which was located in the Tennessee Mountains, a group of us would go spelunking on Saturdays. The mountains were riddled with caverns of various sizes. On one occasion one other friend of mine and myself set out to explore a new cave. At the entrance there was a rope, and you had to descend into the cave by rappelling down the rope. That I could do. Jim and I entered the cave. But when it was time to leave the cave, I knew I was in big trouble. I’d never been able to climb a rope, and that was the only way out. I felt foolish and in trouble. But Jim who had been in the cave with me took my pack and equipment on his back and climbed out of the cave. Then looking back down in the cave he gave explicit directions to help me climb out and back into the light. I suppose you get the point. We can get into big trouble, but it is Christ who has entered the wilderness, like I entered the cave. He led the world back into light of God through his faithful obedience. He did simply what you and I cannot do. He leads us, and does for us what we cannot do by ourselves. In Christ we find our hope, we find our way out of the cave, out of the tomb into new life.
There are things to inspire and assist us in our journeys in life: prayer, Scripture, sacraments, our relationship with the church and its community. These are the messengers and angels of our lives. But we also have Christ, who tempted as we are, did not sin, but by his grace bears our burdens and leads us back to God.
Sunday, March 12, 2000
Monday, March 6, 2000
Last Epiphany - The Transfiguration
May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)
SEASON: Last Epiphany - The Transfiguration
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: March 6,2000
TEXT: Mark 9:2-9 - The Transfiguration
“And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. . . . Then a cloud overshadowed the, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
ISSUE: The Transfiguration event reveals that Jesus is the Light of the World. He is of God and with God. He stands with Moses the law giver and with Elijah the prophet as the continuing expression of God’s law of love and prophetic call for justice. A select group of disciples are invited into the theophany, and they see Jesus as being with God. The event, which occurs at the center of Mark’s gospel account gives direction to the next part of the story. Jesus now is directed to the cross. It calls all of us to seek the presence of Christ that we might be strengthened with him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On this last day of the Epiphany Season, the gospel reading is the story of or the event of The Transfiguration of Jesus. It is a the recounting of a mystical event. Mystical events such as this one are difficult for many Americans. Our culture is not very comfortable with mysterious events. We like for the most part to think of ourselves as scientific, rational, people of reason, and cloudy mystical experiences make it difficult for us to understand. Thus, such experiences are simply rejected. It is interesting that the American culture is actually an exception to many of the other cultures of the world which are more accepting of mystical experiences. We might wonder why we are the exception. It may have something to do with our need to think of ourselves as self-made men and women, who don’t quite recognize a need for God that keeps us from mystical experiences with some depth to them. What I think is especially important as we try to make sense of Scripture is not to ask to much as to how such a thing might have happened, but to ask “What does the story mean?” Why would Mark, or any of the other writers, tell us this story.
In any event, Mark tells of Jesus going up a high mountain. While he and several select disciples are there on the mountain top, Jesus becomes transfigured. His clothes become dazzling white, whiter than they could be bleached. Appearing with Jesus in this mystical event is Moses and Elijah. Moses had been the great leader of the nation Israel, God’s people. He had been their law giver, and the one who eventually led them to the promised land. Elijah also appears with Jesus on the mountain top. Elijah was one of Israel’s most cherished prophets who had fought against injustice and the apostasy of Israel, when they at time abandoned their relationship with God. Interestingly enough both Moses and Elijah had themselves mountain top experiences where they were in the presence of God. Moses receives the Commandments of God on Mt. Sinai. Elijah as well received hears God speak to him in the “still small voice.” For the people of this time, these great leaders were seen as men of God.
Mark wants his readers to know that Jesus stands honorably with the great religious figures of his people’s history. Jesus like Moses and Elijah is truly a man of God. What’s more, he is indeed, son of God. He is just as worthy of being listened to as was Moses and Elijah. The very transfiguration itself tells the listener that so far as the early church was concerned, Jesus is the Light of the World, so dazzling that no bleach on earth could make him so brilliant, and so distinguished, so pure. The Jesus who walked with men and women, who touched lepers and corpses, who ate and fraternized with common tax collectors and prostitutes, also walks with and is in touch with God. Jesus who has crossed the boundaries by touching the impure lot of those thought to be unworthy of being in the presence of God and becomes himself polluted steps across another boundary into the very realm of God itself. He is the light of the world, and the Beloved Son of God worthy of human attention: “Listen to him.” For Mark Jesus is the new Temple.
It is also interesting that the event is as mystifying, if not terrifying, for the select disciples who have accompanied Jesus to the mountain top. Peter is unable to comprehend this event, and begins to considering building tents or booths (dwellings) for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. He is baffled by the experience. There was a Jewish Festival of Booths, in which Jewish men built tents for booths and lived outdoors for seven days commemorating their time of wandering in the wilderness with Moses before entering the Promised Land. The disciples seem to want to capture the event, but mystical events are always fleeting.
Mark places this Transfiguration Story in the center of his Gospel. It comes at the half way mark. At the beginning when Jesus was baptized by John, and when he is brought up out of the water a voice came from the heavens declaring, “This is my Son, my beloved.” With those words Jesus began his ministry of teaching and healing. We’ve considered many of the healing stories in the past weeks. We’ve considered his teachings and his healing ministry. At the point of the Transfiguration Story, there is a mark of a new chapter in the life of Jesus. The baptismal event marked the beginning of his teaching healing ministry. The transfiguration story marks the beginning of Jesus journey to Jerusalem and his eventual crucifixion. While Jesus was a great man, teacher and healer, he is also a man of great sacrifice in his work for justice, who is obedient to the Father even to death on the cross.
The disciples are ready to tell what they have seen and heard, but Jesus silences them. It is only when the world sees his ultimate sacrifice, will they truly understand that he is The Son of God, and the Light (or enlightenment) for the World.
Many churches around the world use this story of the Transfiguration on this Sunday. It comes as an appropriate conclusion to the Epiphany Season, the season which is meant to reveal that Jesus is the savior, helper, of the world. He is the expression of God’s brilliant love and Light of God come to the darkness of the world. At the same time Jesus is the one who brings Peter, James, and John into the mystical presence of God. As we move out of Epiphany and into the Lenten Season it is our time to be alone with God, and to seek a deeper personal enlightenment and appreciation of the meaning and mystery of life. It is our season for coming closer to the God that Jesus leads us to, so that we can better discern what God would have us to be and to do with our lives. It’s our time to go to the mountain top to be close to God.
I wonder if you’ve ever really contemplated the mystery of life. Many of us probably have from time to time. Perhaps you’ve gone to mountain top and looked down into the valleys and wondered what was going on in all the places below. Perhaps you’ve flown in an airplane, and looked down on the world beneath you. Have you wondered as to what’s going on in all those homes, hospitals, factories, businesses below. People may be making love. Children are being born; people even young ones may be dying. Someone is getting mugged or murdered. A discovery is being made for the betterment of mankind. It’s a real mixture of life and death, love and hate, apathy and indifference along with great commitments. All of our lives are caught in the mystery of life, as to why it even exists and ever came into being. Below is chaos, mystery, and many things we simply cannot understand. We can know well what it was like for Peter, James, and John. What was happening to them was all very mysterious, and may have made little sense to them, until such time as they could contemplate the event and search its meaning.
All of life is mystery and we need, I think, the presence of God in our lives to help us to discern our place in the scheme and chaos of things. We have to search out God and ask for strength to persevere, for a purpose that helps us to identify with the way of Jesus. We say and do some strange things in the church. We talk about the body and blood of Jesus. We talk about healing, and sitting on the right hand of God, and heaven and hell. These are all mysterious things, yet they have a meaning that has addressed us with hope and renewal, and the presence of God down through the ages. They mystery may be to our great help.
Sometimes we can get so very bogged down in the hurt, pain, suffering, and uncertainties of life that it may all seem meaningless and harsh. We are presently living in a time when much of our culture is immersed in violence. Just this week the Bishop called the clergy to a conference on Domestic Violence and Abuse. Facts are that one out of every six women are abused by their husbands. While the conference was going on a six year old boy murdered a classmate, and another man went berserk in Pittsburgh. What’s happening to us and our world. We need God, we need help, we need perspective, and understanding, along with compassion. We need to know how we minister, to help, to care, to foster a world with justice, law and order, with love and compassion. It is in our close relationship with Christ who leads us to God that will enable us to do our part in the world and in the midst of things we cannot understand.
The Ash Wednesday Invitation to the Keeping of a Holy Lent may be read. Prayer Book, p. 264f
SEASON: Last Epiphany - The Transfiguration
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: March 6,2000
TEXT: Mark 9:2-9 - The Transfiguration
“And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. . . . Then a cloud overshadowed the, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!”
ISSUE: The Transfiguration event reveals that Jesus is the Light of the World. He is of God and with God. He stands with Moses the law giver and with Elijah the prophet as the continuing expression of God’s law of love and prophetic call for justice. A select group of disciples are invited into the theophany, and they see Jesus as being with God. The event, which occurs at the center of Mark’s gospel account gives direction to the next part of the story. Jesus now is directed to the cross. It calls all of us to seek the presence of Christ that we might be strengthened with him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On this last day of the Epiphany Season, the gospel reading is the story of or the event of The Transfiguration of Jesus. It is a the recounting of a mystical event. Mystical events such as this one are difficult for many Americans. Our culture is not very comfortable with mysterious events. We like for the most part to think of ourselves as scientific, rational, people of reason, and cloudy mystical experiences make it difficult for us to understand. Thus, such experiences are simply rejected. It is interesting that the American culture is actually an exception to many of the other cultures of the world which are more accepting of mystical experiences. We might wonder why we are the exception. It may have something to do with our need to think of ourselves as self-made men and women, who don’t quite recognize a need for God that keeps us from mystical experiences with some depth to them. What I think is especially important as we try to make sense of Scripture is not to ask to much as to how such a thing might have happened, but to ask “What does the story mean?” Why would Mark, or any of the other writers, tell us this story.
In any event, Mark tells of Jesus going up a high mountain. While he and several select disciples are there on the mountain top, Jesus becomes transfigured. His clothes become dazzling white, whiter than they could be bleached. Appearing with Jesus in this mystical event is Moses and Elijah. Moses had been the great leader of the nation Israel, God’s people. He had been their law giver, and the one who eventually led them to the promised land. Elijah also appears with Jesus on the mountain top. Elijah was one of Israel’s most cherished prophets who had fought against injustice and the apostasy of Israel, when they at time abandoned their relationship with God. Interestingly enough both Moses and Elijah had themselves mountain top experiences where they were in the presence of God. Moses receives the Commandments of God on Mt. Sinai. Elijah as well received hears God speak to him in the “still small voice.” For the people of this time, these great leaders were seen as men of God.
Mark wants his readers to know that Jesus stands honorably with the great religious figures of his people’s history. Jesus like Moses and Elijah is truly a man of God. What’s more, he is indeed, son of God. He is just as worthy of being listened to as was Moses and Elijah. The very transfiguration itself tells the listener that so far as the early church was concerned, Jesus is the Light of the World, so dazzling that no bleach on earth could make him so brilliant, and so distinguished, so pure. The Jesus who walked with men and women, who touched lepers and corpses, who ate and fraternized with common tax collectors and prostitutes, also walks with and is in touch with God. Jesus who has crossed the boundaries by touching the impure lot of those thought to be unworthy of being in the presence of God and becomes himself polluted steps across another boundary into the very realm of God itself. He is the light of the world, and the Beloved Son of God worthy of human attention: “Listen to him.” For Mark Jesus is the new Temple.
It is also interesting that the event is as mystifying, if not terrifying, for the select disciples who have accompanied Jesus to the mountain top. Peter is unable to comprehend this event, and begins to considering building tents or booths (dwellings) for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. He is baffled by the experience. There was a Jewish Festival of Booths, in which Jewish men built tents for booths and lived outdoors for seven days commemorating their time of wandering in the wilderness with Moses before entering the Promised Land. The disciples seem to want to capture the event, but mystical events are always fleeting.
Mark places this Transfiguration Story in the center of his Gospel. It comes at the half way mark. At the beginning when Jesus was baptized by John, and when he is brought up out of the water a voice came from the heavens declaring, “This is my Son, my beloved.” With those words Jesus began his ministry of teaching and healing. We’ve considered many of the healing stories in the past weeks. We’ve considered his teachings and his healing ministry. At the point of the Transfiguration Story, there is a mark of a new chapter in the life of Jesus. The baptismal event marked the beginning of his teaching healing ministry. The transfiguration story marks the beginning of Jesus journey to Jerusalem and his eventual crucifixion. While Jesus was a great man, teacher and healer, he is also a man of great sacrifice in his work for justice, who is obedient to the Father even to death on the cross.
The disciples are ready to tell what they have seen and heard, but Jesus silences them. It is only when the world sees his ultimate sacrifice, will they truly understand that he is The Son of God, and the Light (or enlightenment) for the World.
Many churches around the world use this story of the Transfiguration on this Sunday. It comes as an appropriate conclusion to the Epiphany Season, the season which is meant to reveal that Jesus is the savior, helper, of the world. He is the expression of God’s brilliant love and Light of God come to the darkness of the world. At the same time Jesus is the one who brings Peter, James, and John into the mystical presence of God. As we move out of Epiphany and into the Lenten Season it is our time to be alone with God, and to seek a deeper personal enlightenment and appreciation of the meaning and mystery of life. It is our season for coming closer to the God that Jesus leads us to, so that we can better discern what God would have us to be and to do with our lives. It’s our time to go to the mountain top to be close to God.
I wonder if you’ve ever really contemplated the mystery of life. Many of us probably have from time to time. Perhaps you’ve gone to mountain top and looked down into the valleys and wondered what was going on in all the places below. Perhaps you’ve flown in an airplane, and looked down on the world beneath you. Have you wondered as to what’s going on in all those homes, hospitals, factories, businesses below. People may be making love. Children are being born; people even young ones may be dying. Someone is getting mugged or murdered. A discovery is being made for the betterment of mankind. It’s a real mixture of life and death, love and hate, apathy and indifference along with great commitments. All of our lives are caught in the mystery of life, as to why it even exists and ever came into being. Below is chaos, mystery, and many things we simply cannot understand. We can know well what it was like for Peter, James, and John. What was happening to them was all very mysterious, and may have made little sense to them, until such time as they could contemplate the event and search its meaning.
All of life is mystery and we need, I think, the presence of God in our lives to help us to discern our place in the scheme and chaos of things. We have to search out God and ask for strength to persevere, for a purpose that helps us to identify with the way of Jesus. We say and do some strange things in the church. We talk about the body and blood of Jesus. We talk about healing, and sitting on the right hand of God, and heaven and hell. These are all mysterious things, yet they have a meaning that has addressed us with hope and renewal, and the presence of God down through the ages. They mystery may be to our great help.
Sometimes we can get so very bogged down in the hurt, pain, suffering, and uncertainties of life that it may all seem meaningless and harsh. We are presently living in a time when much of our culture is immersed in violence. Just this week the Bishop called the clergy to a conference on Domestic Violence and Abuse. Facts are that one out of every six women are abused by their husbands. While the conference was going on a six year old boy murdered a classmate, and another man went berserk in Pittsburgh. What’s happening to us and our world. We need God, we need help, we need perspective, and understanding, along with compassion. We need to know how we minister, to help, to care, to foster a world with justice, law and order, with love and compassion. It is in our close relationship with Christ who leads us to God that will enable us to do our part in the world and in the midst of things we cannot understand.
The Ash Wednesday Invitation to the Keeping of a Holy Lent may be read. Prayer Book, p. 264f
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