40 days and 40 nights. There are places we do not want to go. Places we will not go. Ugly places. Painful ones. Dangerous and dirty. Maybe a hospital or a nursing home. Or that part of town or a city. I have never been to a third world country. I am both drawn to such a place and repulsed. Places where Malaria threatens and drinking water is scarce. Places where children die in huts and parents weep. I have been places to which I do not hope to return. Certain apartments. I lived in one that wreaked of cigarettes no matter what we did. There are places we do not want to go. Hell is real and it is nearby. We needn’t die to find ourselves in it. Hell is any place where suffering and violence maim and take life.
There are people we avoid. Ugly people. Frightening ones. Sick and dying people. I have been to their houses and watched them shrink and die. It is ugly and sad and frightening and imprinted in my mind. I would protect others from the sight. And there are others: People of color, non-english speakers. People whose culture or dress is not like ours. There are people we avoid. A Single parent yelling at their child. Two people arguing in public. A man walking out of the county prison. A woman coming to an NA meeting. A public protester. A man standing in line at the homeless shelter. People we see on television, on the news, and know to avoid them. They are young black and Hispanic men. I am ashamed to say this out loud and in public because I am no racist. But we cannot deny the prejudice that produces fear that creates distance and avoidance. There are people we avoid. To protect ourselves.
What if you were forced into a situation, a place with another person in which you were most uncomfortable? Where would that be and what would the other person be like? Would it be a dark place, an unfamiliar place, a foreign place? Would it be a strange man, a person of color, a loud or violent person? Would it be on a city street at night when a poor and dirty homeless man, smelling of booze wanders over begging for a couple of bucks to buy a beer? What do you do then? How do you proceed? But that would never happen to you. You just don’t go there.
Jesus is forced out into the wilderness, where he is tested by Satan. Mark writes that the Spirit drives him out. 40 days and nights. Over a month. Isolated. Alone. Without human contact. But a place of violence. Physical austerity, extremes. Without shelter or food. This is no extreme sport. Jesus is no thrill seeker. This is simply part of his adult life. A period of suffering he must’ve shared with his disciples. He was off the grid, as we say. Was he weakened by this encounter with human vulnerability or strengthened by the test? Does he believe that God sends him out there or does something darker drive him to this place of foreboding and despair? Alone with wild beasts. Cast out. Forced. His ability to survive tested. Will he live or die?
Jesus never leaves that wilderness experience. It dogs him the rest of his days. Living on the edge of survival. Will he live or die? His own family questions his sanity; others question his morality. It takes little time, little effort before he alienates himself from people whose hatred intensifies to violence. He will threaten, even as he heals. He will stir up anger, even as he teaches peace. He will welcome outcasts and become one as a result. He will give life to the dead and lose his life doing so. He will give sight to the blind and strike blind those who thought they saw the truth. He will talk of his own death, even as evil men plot to make it so.
Jesus was a man on a mission. And he was not beautiful and gentle and soft and lovely. He was not adorable or entertaining. He was no showman. He was calloused and hard. He drank wine and ate heartily. He hung out with lowlifes and sick people and people with mental illness. He touched prostitutes and ate with thieves. He fed the hungry so that they would not steal to eat. Did you ever think that feeding the multitudes was an act of nonviolence? Hungry people are potentially dangerous people; as are outcasts and minorities and those who are being unjustly treated. Their anger kindled becomes a riot. Or a terrorist attack. Instead, Jesus will be torn apart by the wild beasts in the wilderness of the human community. He will provoke attack. He will let them beat him and hang him on a cross. He will let hell in. Do not see weakness there. It is the power of GOD in Him.
GOD is not afraid. GOD is in every corner, every place, in every human being. GOD is in the dirt and the mess and the sin and the disasters and the crises. God is in the violence, not as perpetrator but as savior. GOD is in every place that we refuse to go, in every person we refuse to touch, in every child dying from Malaria or starving in an orphanage or waiting for dad to get out of jail again. In everyone. God is near. We need not invite God in. We need not close our eyes and pray God into existence. We need not imagine God. If you do not perceive God, that is not God’s problem. Absence is not non-existence. Does someone cease to exist because you do not see or hear them? Many people and things live that I will never see or know. And God is in this body. Because every part of creation is worth touching and healing and saving. Every part has value, every person has worth.
And also, Jesus is my King. I live in His kingdom. I am subject to his command. His command is to love. To love is to give, to go, to be present for and with the other-wherever they are in the wilderness of this mortal life. Love goes to hell to claim that which has been lost there. We are being cast out into the wilderness to dwell with the wild beasts, to minister like angels, to touch and to heal and to give life. There is no time. There is only now. Immediately. At this moment they are calling to us. Feed us. Help us. Protect us. Shelter us. Give us hope. 40 days and 40 nights. Amen.
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