Read the Lectionary Texts

Here we are on the first Sunday in the season of Lent. From the earliest days of the Christian Church, this 40-day period of time before Easter (not including Sundays) has been set aside as a season for reflection and soul-searching. The meaning of Lent and its number of days is based upon today’s Gospel reading from Mark which tells us that after his baptism, Jesus was led by the Sprit into the desert for forty days.

What in the world do you do in the desert for even a few days besides play golf in Arizona? Even then, forty days is a long time to spend in the desert.

In the Bible, forty days is mentioned as the length of time it rained during the days of Noah and the Ark. The Bible also tells us that when Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, they wandered for forty years. And when Moses went up onto Mt. Sinai where he received the Ten Commandments, he remained on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

The number forty – whether in days, weeks, months, or years – is a very important number in the Bible and always represents a period of testing, trial, and soul-searching.

And the desert is where you come face-to-face with yourself – with your humanity – with your mortality – and with your God.

I once wrote a magazine article about what I then described as my conversion experience – that time during my sophomore year in college when God became real to me in a new and dramatic way, and I sensed the calling to Christian ministry. It was such a wonderful mountaintop moment that felt like being born again, and I wanted to share with others the sheer joy of what I had experienced. So I wrote up a story telling of this great moment and sent it off to a Christian magazine.

A few weeks later I received the rejection letter which gently but firmly suggested I not write this story until I had a chance to live this faith for a while.

I think what they were saying is that our Christian life is not really formed on the mountaintop, but in the desert places of life. It’s so easy to live as a Christian when everything is wonderful, but when life turns to sand and hot wind, what do you have then? It is in the desert and not on the mountaintop where you find out what you’re made of, what your faith is made of, and what God is made of too.

I was twelve years old when my mother received the phone call that her father, my grandfather, had collapsed at home. The paramedics were on their way. My grandmother was beside herself with worry. My mother asked a neighbor for a ride to my grandparents house. As she dashed out the door, mom called back to us kids to pray for grandpa.

I remember falling to my knees and calling out to God. “PLEASE DON’T LET MY GRANDPA DIE!” Over and over again I repeated the words, occasionally adding in promises that if God saved grandpa I would give up all the nasty sinful things I had done, was doing, or even would do in the future. Even at twelve years of age, I was convinced I could negotiate a deal with God.

Time passed. The phone rang. It was mom.

Grandpa was dead.

I collapsed on my bed, sobbing convulsively. I was caught in the grip of an awful riptide of grief where – on the one hand – my grandpa was dead.

And – on the other – so was my belief in God.

Have you ever faced such a moment?

I know lots of people who’ve walked that lonesome valley.

The desert of life.

On April 4, 1943, a B-24 bomber named “Lady Be Good” took off from an airstrip in Africa for a bombing mission over Naples, Italy. The aircraft never returned. For years it was believed to have crashed in the Mediterranean. But 16 years later – in 1959 – a British oil exploration team working in the Libyan desert came across the almost perfectly preserved remains of a crashed B-24 Liberator. It was the “Lady Be Good.”

The co-pilot of the bomber was Robert Toner, a 2nd Lieutenant who hailed from North Attleboro, Massachusetts – the town where we once lived and where there are today streets and buildings named in his honor. Toner had kept a diary of the mission – the first combat mission flown by that crew. When the remains of Robert and seven of the eight other crewmembers were found in 1960, the diary was also discovered, and the world learned the story-behind-the-story of “Lady Be Good.”

The B-24 – flying above the clouds and at night – had gotten lost on its way back to base. At 2 o’clock in the morning, the aircraft ran out of fuel and the order was given to bail out. One crewmember’s parachute did not open. The other 8 landed close by each other. Toner’s diary tells of their grouping up, of leaving equipment at various points to mark a trail, and of rationing the half-a-canteen of water they had between them – one capful of water per man per day. Daytime temperatures were blazing. At night, the temperature dropped to below freezing. They walked as far as they could until 5 of them could walk no further. They were 85-miles from the crash site. Two of the crew continued on in search of help. One made it another 20 miles or so before succumbing. The other made it 20 miles or so beyond that. The grim determination of these men to save each other was displayed in where their bodies were found.

Toner’s diary went on for 9-days. It tells of the concern the men had for each other, of their suffering, and of their constant prayer. The last entry is dated Monday, April 12th, 1943 – the day before it is believed Toner died and which – in that year – was the first day of Holy Week, the last week in the season of Lent.

Understanding how devastating and treacherous is the desert, why do you think our faith leads us to it? Why not just let us stay up on the mountaintop? Why can’t we just avoid all this Lenten stuff, and all that Good Friday crucifixion, death and tears? Why can’t we just go right to the joy of Easter and bypass all that difficult desert stuff?

Well, because it is only in the desert that we truly learn who we are…what we are…and Whose we are.

For one thing, we are mortal creatures who are not nearly as in control of life as we think.

I’m sure one of the reasons my sophomore year Pulitzer Prize winning magazine article was never printed is because it was all about how GREAT life had become now that I was a Christian. All my sins had been forgiven! I was righteous beyond belief and holier than thou – and thou – and especially thou! If I had a problem, all I had to do was pray it away! And I had all the answers too – about why my life was so good, and your life was so miserable, and why my faith was better than yours.

Well, that all lasted about a month. Strangely enough, new sins sprouted up in the place where old ones used to be – and to make matters worse – some of the old sins soon returned, too! I started encountering prayers that went unanswered, temptations that could not be resisted, problems for which I could not find solutions. And as time went on, I realized more and more fully that I was not really the perfect person my dog thought I was!

In the desert of life, I was learning that I am not a saint, but a sinner – not a deity but one who came from dust with nothing to my name, and who to dust one day will return – as empty-handed as when I arrived.

The Lenten desert journey challenges us to look into the mirror and see who we really are. It introduces us to the humility of our humanity. When you read Robert Toner’s 9-day diary, you can’t help but notice among these strong young American men the growing sense of helplessness there in the Libyan desert. They were coming face-to-face with the reality of what it is to be human. And when we read about Jesus’ 40-days in the desert, we see him struggling with temptation, hunger, exhaustion and…helplessness.

Listen to the last sentence of the passage from Mark 1. “He was with the wild animals…”

That is a frightening description of someone who has hit the limits of their humanity.

But listen to the rest of the sentence. “He was with the wild animals…and the angels attended him.”

You see human beings need God. We were created to live in partnership with our Creator. We came from God. We will return to God. And in between our birth and our death, God is here, attending to us with angels, surrounding us with grace, whispering to us that He loves us, and inviting us to trust and walk with Him.

Lent is a time for remembering and confessing who we are…what we are…and Whose we are.

We are sinners, not saints.

We are dust, not Deity.

But we are loved with a Love that will not let us go.

So come into the desert with Jesus.

Face up to yourself.

Trust God.

And let the angels attend to you.