The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him. After John had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1.12-15)
Today we backtrack a bit. For the last several weeks we have been studying Chapter 1 of the Gospel of Mark, beginning with Rabbi Jesus’ call of the disciples at the Sea of Galilee, proceeding to his preaching in the synagogue, healing Simon’s mother-in-law as well as the leper, and exorcizing demons from a possessed man. All has been on a forward trajectory.
However, while the selection that we have on this First Sunday of Lent also comes from the Gospel of Mark, it tells of an occurrence that preceded all the others that we have studied thus far. In fact, the incident starts at verse 12, the only thing prior to it being the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan. It tells of Jesus’ going into the desert after his baptism, where he is tested by Satan. The incident is considered to be part of the prologue of the gospel, along with his baptism, the gospel proper beginning with his public ministry.
Were we to juxtapose Mark’s telling of the temptation in the desert with the later stories told by Matthew and Luke, both of whom used Mark as a primary source, we would be struck by the brevity of the story in Mark’s text. But, of course, as we have seen, Mark excels at brevity, making his point without elaboration and moving on to his next concern.
So, Mark simply says Jesus went into the desert for forty days where he was tempted by Satan, surrounded by wild beasts, but ministered to by angels. Two short sentences–that’s it. There is no indication of how the devil tempted Jesus, nor the number of times, or the back-and-forth dialogue between the two as we will find in Matthew and Luke. We almost get the impression that Mark is out of breath in telling his gospel, moving along at a breakneck speed. Little wonder, then, his favorite word is “immediately.”
With few details and fewer hints, what are we to make of Mark’s version of the event? Well, several things are important to him. First, the desert, which historically was the place where the Hebrew slaves wandered for forty years, searching for the Promised Land, tried and tested by the harsh environment in which they found themselves.
Obviously, Mark is pointing to this experience when he says Jesus went into the desert. The desert was where the Hebrews came to their self-understanding, their identity solidifying as “a people peculiarly his own,” a reference to the Lord God’s preference for them. Through the years in the desert, they came to understand in a fuller way the meaning of the divine appropriation, “I will be your God and you will be my people.”
Since the going into the desert episode follows immediately after the baptism of Jesus, wherein a voice from above tells him that he is “the Beloved Son,” it makes sense that his personal desert experience would be one of coming to a better and fuller understanding of who and whose he is. In the desert, his identity as the Beloved Son is made clearer to him, allowing him to see what he must do now because he is truly the Beloved Son.
However, since Mark says Jesus was in the desert for forty days, not forty years, he probably is also alluding to both the forty day fast of Moses in the desert of Sinai and the fast of Elijah the prophet near Mount Horeb, using these two Biblical forerunners as exemplars of other prophets who were tested and who received revelations from the Most High God during their tests. They came to know the heart of God through their forty day ordeals.
And finally, Mark tells us that Jesus was tempted by Satan, simply a word that means an adversary. As we know, an adversary is another word for an opponent in a conflict. That is to say, Jesus is on one side; Satan is on the other side, the two seen by Mark as battling one another for dominion of the world. Satan, his grip strong on the hearts of men, sees an existential threat in Jesus, who, as Mark tells us, proclaims, “The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent,” his words urging people to turn away from sin and to return to the ways of the Lord God.
It is interesting that Mark has a detail in his text that neither Matthew nor Luke has. He says that while Jesus was in the desert “he was among wild beasts,” an unusual statement since wild beasts rarely were considered part of the desert. Reptiles, yes; beasts, no. Some scholars theorize that Mark’s insertion of wild beasts into the text might be a reference to Nero’s persecution of Christians that was occurring as Mark was writing his gospel, particularly because one of his diabolical acts was throwing the Christians to the wild beasts that had been let loose in the coliseum. In other words, as Jesus was subjected to the wild beasts, so his followers were. All things considered, it is a good theory.
Another school of thought likes to see the beasts as working with Satan and the angels as ministering to Jesus, the two groups forming foot soldiers in the opposing camps, much the same as Satan is the adversary or opponent of Jesus in this battle between good and evil. Each one has his forces with him as the battle intensifies. Such a reading of the text has a lot to commend it.
Since Mark is the only evangelist to speak of wild beasts in the desert, it seems important that we take a moment to see if it offers us some insight for our own lives, even if we are far removed from the desert and even if few of us are surrounded by wild beasts. I like to think we can find something of use for our spiritual lives in much the same way as the early Christians who suffered death by being mauled to death in the coliseum found strength in the knowledge that Jesus also had contended with the beasts.
The fact of the matter is we don’t have to restrict wild beasts to the four-legged, furry, sharp-toothed types that haunt fairytales of the Grimm brothers or fill back regions of Africa. Wild beasts come in many disguises, but are distinguished by their ugliness, their fierceness, and their baseness. With those traits as our guides, we detect wild beasts even if they are hidden in disguises such as poverty, prejudice, and pestilence.
Without question, these and other malignant forces in our world are as alive and as ravenous and as deadly as any four-legged creature that walks the earth. When we stare in the face of any wrong that diminishes, denigrates, or destroys human dignity, we will see the same evil glare that is found in beasts in the wild that stalk, attack, and kill the smaller, vulnerable and defenseless creatures of the earth.
Obviously, Mark has included wild beasts for a reason, and we do well to read it, as some have said, as his putting in front of us in this story of Jesus among the wild beasts two armies at war, the Galilean, ministered by angels, representing the army for good, and Satan, assisted by the wild beasts, representing the army for evil. They are opposite in every way.
And the question that the story asks us to consider is which camp do we belong to. Are we on the side of Jesus and the angels, or are we on the side of Satan and the wild beasts? The answer, as always, is as clear as our actions. Do we fight against prejudice in every ugly form it shows itself, or do we join alongside the forces that pigeonhole people based on our dislikes, putting them in precarious positions because of our beastly, inhumane ways?
Do we marshall all the strength we have to help people in need, who suffer starvation or sickness, who find the world a living hell instead of a good place to live, or do we ignore the cries of the poor, attack the immigrant among us, and pounce on the powerless like a leopard in the wild? Again, the answer is before our very eyes, found in our words and in our ways.
Another thing to consider. If we go back to the biblical story for a moment, it is important to see that Mark begins by telling us that Jesus “was there in the wilderness forty days where he was tempted by Satan.” On the surface, there is nothing new in the statement. We’ve heard about the temptation in the desert a hundred times. But a more careful reading of the text argues that it is equally correct to translate the Greek word for tempted as tested. In other words, we can say Jesus was tested in the desert.
This puts a different slant on the story. To say someone is tempted is to say that he or she is being urged to do something wrong. However, to say that someone is being tested is to say that he or she is being urged to do what is right. This is no mean distinction, but, in fact, is significant. To be tempted implies a hope for failure; to be tested implies a hope for success. Perhaps a good example is that of the athlete. Using his or her abilities and strength, he or she is tested, shown capable of surpassing and succeeding. But they are not tempted.
The Hebrew scriptures often present us with images of people being tested. So we find in the Book of Genesis that Abraham was tested when he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. Moses, in preparing the Israelites for entrance into the Promised Land, tells them, “Remember all the ways which the Lord God led you these forty years in the wilderness to humble you and to test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.” And, for his part, the Psalmist says, “The Lord tests the righteous.”
Interpreting the word as a test allows us to see ourselves as having the opportunity to prove we can do good; we have the inner strength to follow the ways of righteousness; we can fight the good fight without flagging or failing. Whereas the word tempted might suggest we are weak and frail, the word tested implies we have an inner strength that will prevail, whatever the obstacles along the course.
It is, as I like to think, a better way to interpret the text and, correspondingly, to understand its message for ourselves. The story accepts that we will be tried and tested, but also argues that we, like Jesus, can prevail. Ministered to by angels, we can meet the challenge put before us and we can prove our mettle. Aligning ourselves on the side of good, refusing to weaken our resolve or to compromise our values, we will fight the wild beasts wherever we find them.
On March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln, newly sworn in as the President of the United States, gave his First Inaugural Address. Recognizing the divisions of the time and the threat of dissolution of the Union because of the matter of slavery, he made it clear that the Union would not back down if provoked and would not condone secession whatever the tests put before it.
As he stared into the face of the beasts of prejudice and bigotry, he pleaded that “the better angels of our nature” might prevail. It is much the same thing that Mark is telling us today. As we come face to face with beasts of the wilderness who wreck lives and feast on the powerless, we want to remember that we also have the better angels of our nature who are there to assist us as we are put to the test.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 