Lent: A Season of Testing

By Rev. Andre Castillo

Each year at First Presbyterian Church, we begin the season of Lent by revisiting the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. I particularly love the powerful imagery the Gospel of Mark uses to describe these sacred moments.

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he 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.’

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.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’” – Mark 1:9-15 (NRSV)

Contrasted with much longer narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, Mark includes only two verses on the temptation story. But these two short verses are so densely packed with significance that we would do ourselves a disservice if we were to assume their brevity connotes a lack of depth.

Let us not miss, for instance, the word “immediately”. Right after Jesus was baptized, and right after God’s voice boomed from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased…”, the Spirit immediately drove Jesus into the wilderness. One would think that God being pleased and announcing Jesus as the beloved Son, would be inauguration enough for Jesus’ ministry to begin. Would we not expect this ceremonial moment to be the initiation of God’s kingdom come to earth in the form of the Messiah? Instead, the Spirit of God saw fit to transition immediately from ceremony to crucible. Mark then efficiently describes the next forty days, summarizing them in a few short words: that Jesus was tempted by Satan, that he was with the wild beasts, and that the angels waited on him.

You may recall from Bible studies past that the number forty is one the Bible revisits time and again. The Israelites wandered in the desert for forty years while preparing to enter the promised land. Moses was on Mount Sinai for forty days on two separate occasions. In Noah’s days, God sent the rain for forty days and forty nights. Goliath taunted Israel for forty days before David arrived to claim victory. Forty is the number of preparation. It is the number that God uses to signify an intentional and intense period of cleansing and focus that ultimately gives way to the revelation of God’s marvelous plans for the next chapter.

Then Mark includes this curious phrase, “and he was with the wild beasts.” Why, in all of his brevity and economical storytelling, would Mark see fit to include this seemingly random detail? Just like the number forty, the Greek word “therion”, which we translate “wild beast”, refers to a specific type of creature. The word is used throughout the New Testament, from the Gospels through Revelation, many times in a metaphorical sense, but always referring to a predatory creature. Mark is communicating that Jesus was driven into an environment where the native fauna was out for blood. Why is that significant? Because it reveals to us something about Jesus, something about the Son of God sent to earth to do spiritual battle on our behalf. It reveals something about us as well. In the pressure cooker of confrontation and preparation, human beings, made in the image of Almighty God, have the unique ability to decide whether we will be preyed upon. This is no casual detail included by the author, but rather a theological statement about the intrinsic resilience of the human soul. In moments of turmoil and testing, surrounded by wild beasts, we can, and we must, choose whether we will be the prey. Or the wild beasts will choose for us.

This exposes something else we cannot afford to miss about the nature of humankind. God knows it because we were created in God’s very image. The wild beasts know it. Satan himself knows this detail about us and quietly schemes to keep us so distracted, so distraught, that we remain ignorant to the fact that Satan is not the threat in this story. You are.

Think about it: why would Satan bother with Jesus if he were not an emanant threat to the spiritual forces of darkness? Why would Satan bother with you if you were not a threat beyond compare? There is no other created being designed in the image of God, designed to reflect the beauty and complexity and diversity of God’s very nature. Not even the angels nor Satan himself. We assume ourselves to be the underdog in the story of temptation. But no other being in all of creation is designed to be a vessel for the Holy Spirit of God, save for you and I. That is why Satan is threatened to his very core. Because he knows that all the strength and resolve he can muster will never hold a candle to the Spirit of God living in and through you.

The Church is being tested. We may be feeling disconnected, surrounded by wild beasts, and tempted to throw in the towel. In the last two years, we have witnessed population changes and pastoral turnover in many of our churches, a global pandemic, racial injustice, political upheaval, the death of loved ones, and an unjustified war in Europe. The trials are real. But you need to know that you are not as fragile as you think you are.

What if this season of disorientation is an opportunity for re-orientation? What if we focused less on feeling disconnected from the church, and took a moment to realize that we are the church? What if this season of testing is designed to remind us that the Church of Jesus Christ was never just about sitting shoulder to shoulder in the pews? Rather, I wonder if sitting shoulder to shoulder in the pews is about preparing us to walk out the doors of our sanctuaries, equipped to love our neighbors in the challenging moments such as this.

Many of us have been pondering the same question for two years now: when we come out of this pandemic, what if the Church doesn’t look the same as it once did? I wonder if the real tragedy would be if the church did look exactly the same. What if we missed this opportunity to be forged by this crucible into the likeness of Christ? What if this has been a necessary and intentional precursor to the next glorious chapter of God’s story in Greenwich?

When Jesus comes out of the wilderness, we hear him say for the first time, “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” Remember, you are the real powerhouse in this story. You are the real threat to the powers of darkness. When we come out of this season of testing, what will be our testimony? We have it within us to make it the triumphant battle cry of a people who know that we are the church, and who boldly offer that same hope that Jesus did as he emerged from the wilderness, “Believe in the good news!”

Rev. Andre Castillo serves as the Associate Pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Greenwich. He also serves as the Chairperson for the Board of Trustees of the Presbytery of Southern New England, and as an Advisory Board Member with the Greenwich Center for Hope and Renewal.

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