The Sermon

We desert people
Chris Halverson

This Wednesday, this Ash Wednesday we entered the Season of Lent, and so we now enter into the desert, the wilderness. The scattered brush looms large over us like twisted and grasping hands. The craggy cliffs and sand worn slopes peer at us like giant disfigured faces. In the day we cry out for a drink of water, only to find dry sand. At nights the wind howls and bites into us, gnawing into our marrow. The jackals snap their grisly teeth and the desert owls howl a mournful, hopeless, wail. It is like a moonscape, always cloudless. We can see the sun set in the West, even as the moon rises in the East, and we can truly see that we are but dust blown about in the cosmos.
Look, two lone figures stumble into the desert before us, hiding their shameful faces, they are the first exiles, the first people to come to the desert. Adam is torn from Eve, and Eve from Adam. The one flesh has found enmity with itself, and with all of creation. Wife and husband blame each other for their choices, for their sin. They blame the snake for their choices, for their sin. They are exiled from all of creation. And so these two fall away from the garden and come out to this place, shame turning to horror. We are in the desert.
And look, there, there is Cain, hands bloodied, gleaming in the moonlight. Shame sticks to him. He is a fugitive, a wanderer. We are in the desert.
And look, Abraham and Sarah go out from Ur, leaving the safety, the security, the ease of the Chaldes. We are in the desert.
And look, Hagar and Ishmael wander through the heat, abandoned mother abandons child to the elements. We are in the desert.
And look, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, with the Hebrew slaves, come out of Egypt, into the desert. They grumble and complain. They create calf-idols as perches for non-existent gods even as the Great I AM provides for them, and leads them. Even the wise Moses gets impatient and is banished from the Promised Land. We are in the desert.
And look, there, there are the Northern Tribes, scattered by Assyrian might. They are caught up in the desert wind, and disappear into the heat. We are in the desert.
And look, the Exiles, lead off by mighty Babylon, cower in terror as they contemplate their fate. They are forced to leave their family behind, forced to leave their land behind, forced to leave, in chains. We are in the desert.

Even as we call out the prayer of Jesus, “Lead us not into temptation,” we are lead by the Spirit into this desert, this temptation. Yet, look up there, Jesus too is here. Jesus too was lead into temptation by the Father, and he too is here in the desert, with us.
God forces us here, to this desert, with Jesus, tempted by the Tempter himself, for good reason. In our temptations, in our trials, in the pains and sufferings of this life, we can do nothing except cling to our hope in God. Our family will fail us, our friends will fail us, our ideologies will fail us, our own bodies will fail us; out here in the desert only God will not fail us. It is said that during forty years of wandering in the desert the Hebrews had nothing, God provided everything, their sandals didn’t wear out, God provided food from heaven, and made drinking water gush up from the ground.
In this desert of Temptation the question is begged, the answer asked for, and we are forced to take a stand. The desert sand strips us of our pretensions and heming and hawing and maybes. We have no choice except to stand firm before the power of Sin, Death, and the Devil, and say, as Martin Luther said, "Hie stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir. Amen," that is, “Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me. Amen.”
Today Jesus is confronted by the Devil. Is this not the temptation of Eve and Adam? Their temptation, “led to condemnation for all,” and yet, through Jesus’ standing up to the Devil and the resistance of temptation, “the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.” Jesus is standing against original sin itself. On this Lenten evening He is beginning a salvific wave that culminates in His Easter resurrection, rippling through all things, destroying the hold of Sin upon this world, that this desert may be watered and become Eden.
The Tempter says, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” If you will remember Jesus does end up doing miracles with bread, he feeds the five thousand. The difference, though, between the feeding of the five thousand and what Jesus is tempted to do now is that here in the Wilderness Jesus would be feeding himself. That would be selfishness, and greed. Jesus stands for a radical other centered love; “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” and, “Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.” This is the Jesus who we follow. Who we seek to emulate. We don’t proclaim Satan’s plaything, shoveling gobs of bread down his gullet, but the Son of God.
The Tempter takes Jesus to the center of the temple, where the people and the pious could see him, and says, “If you are the Son of God throw yourself down.” He wants a haughty Jesus, arrogantly floating into Jerusalem with the wailing of a thousand angels, and a prideful swagger to his step. He wants a Jesus who can be turned into a spectacle for the people, a toy for the crowd, that will leave the people in awe, then be thrown away when he ceases to amuse. But instead Jesus says unfashionable things that make him hated. He does not yield to the will of the crowd, but says to God “your will be done.” This is the Jesus we follow. Who we seek to emulate. We don’t proclaim a Christ of popularity, but the Son of God.
The Tempter shows Jesus the Empires, the kingdoms, the powers and principalities, the political machines of all the earth and says, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Satan wants Jesus to be a Messiah of this world, offering him raw, unadulterated power. This power itself is an idol, believing that somehow we have transcended dust and now rule our own fate, that we are our own god. In standing up against Satan Jesus is standing against Idolatry and Power. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, not a war-horse, he saved his people not by becoming Rambo and storming Rome, but by suffering and death. Jesus says, “if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Jesus stands for humility, even humiliation, even to death. This is the Jesus we follow. Who we seek to emulate. Not a powerful politician promising dreams and schemes, but the Son of God.
Look though, Jesus does more than stand against Satan, he also stands for God. The Spirit of God has already proclaimed him Son; the Son of God has nothing to prove to Satan. He refuses to be defined by the measures of Satan. Each time that serpentine tongue slithers and speaks Jesus has a response. “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” “Do not put the LORD your God to the test.” And “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” Every response goes back to God. In every temptation we face may we do the same, go back to God.
Here in the desert, relationships are broken, pains are suffered, lives are lost, and we can do nothing except cling to God. Yet, that is the hope, the Good News of Jesus Christ. Though we be bedraggled, tempted, banished sinners crawling through the desert, God has done a new thing in the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, and we have found a transcendent oasis.
In this desert, this Lent, with the whole people of God from every time and place, from Eden to the Exile, let us be stripped bare to the foundations of our faith. Toss away Greed, Power, Idols, Spectacle, and cling only to God. Make straight the path into the desert, through the desert, always to God.

I hate to say it, but I feel like my ideas got a bit disorganized, but I think this is pretty much the sermon I'm going to preach in the morning. I feel like I am leaning too much on Rhetorical tricks.
Good night, and Peace,
Chris