Rainbows, Baptism, and the Lenten Wilderness Journey

This is the good news. God is faithful, merciful, and full of steadfast love. God remembers creation and the everlasting covenant of forgiveness. God has come in Jesus Christ, beloved son and savior of the world. Come back to God, for it is only here that we find true hope, true life, and true joy. Amen. Amen. [00:45:16] (28 seconds)  #GoodNewsHope

The one who defeated the wild beasts who would seek to harm him and change him from his course knows firsthand what you are going through. There is no wild beast that you face that he has not faced and defeated. He will help you defeat them as well. Remember, the god of compassion, of love, and grace keeps the promise. [00:44:48] (28 seconds)  #CompassionateDefender

How? Well, Jesus stood up to his temptations. Angels came and ministered to him, which is a bible way of saying that he resisted temptation. So let's remember that as we are trying to walk with Jesus, this story is a reminder that Jesus will walk with us. [00:43:42] (21 seconds)  #JesusWalksWithUs

He who overcame temptation, who stared down the wild beasts and triumphed, will enable us to triumph as well. The letter to the Hebrews in chapter four verse 15 says of Christ that because he was tested and tempted in every way as we are, he understands us in our times of temptation, and he can help us. [00:44:03] (27 seconds)  #TestedForOurSake

But it isn't really a feature of light and color. A bow is a weapon of war. God says, I am setting aside my weapon that I used to bring destruction to the people. I am shifting from a warrior god to a protector god. You see, ancient people thought the rainbow was god's weapon from which his lightning arrows were shot. [00:30:35] (26 seconds)  #FromWarriorToProtector

Because now, god has made the rainbow a symbol not of destruction, but of deliverance and of compassion. So this rainbow is more than simply crossing a method of destruction off some very long list of ways to destroy the world. It is instead a complete reorientation of the relationship between God and God's people. [00:31:53] (24 seconds)  #RainbowOfDeliverance

The rainbow is a symbol of God's peace, which represents so much more than a lack of conflict. The rainbow represents God's grace and mercy, God's commitment to creation, and the turning of god's grief into compassion for all. The rainbow stands as a mutual call to remember. [00:33:00] (24 seconds)  #RainbowOfPeaceAndGrace

Some translators aren't really sure how to translate it because the word that is attached to the word bow is a word that in other places is translated as plowshare, as if turning your weapons into plowshares. I wonder, is this god performing that act that later the prophet Isaiah calls upon all nations to perform, turning weapons of war into farming implements? Perhaps. [00:31:23] (30 seconds)  #TurnSwordsToPlowshares

The setting of my bow in the clouds. The beginning of Jesus' ministry with baptism, water again. And then immediately, he's out in the wilderness for forty days. By the way, that bow in the clouds, there's more to it than a pretty rainbow. God says, I have set my bow in the clouds. We read that as rainbow because that is the word we've created from this text. [00:30:07] (28 seconds)  #BowInTheClouds

When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on earth, says verse 16. It is a symbol of covenant. It is a symbol of acceptance and inclusion. It is a symbol of gathering the community together under a common faith. [00:32:37] (23 seconds)  #CovenantOfInclusion

Well, we have floods and rainbows. We have baptism and temptation. We have Jesus in the wilderness for forty days with wild beasts and angels and Satan tempting him, and we have all the promises and compassion of God. The waters and the grace and of compassion flow through all of these scriptures, from God's deliverance of Noah and all the animals, from the waters of the flood, to the baptism of Jesus in the waters of the Jordan, to our own baptisms that bring us to salvation. [00:29:06] (33 seconds)  #WatersOfSalvation

you know, Mark is always in such a hurry. Immediately, big hurry, so urgent, drove him out into the wilderness. Mark ties Jesus' temptation directly to his baptism, Just like Israel began its life by first going into the wilderness after Egyptian enslavement so that Jesus is now thrust immediately into the wilderness after his baptism. [00:34:13] (26 seconds)  #MarkGospelUrgency

Forty days is also a linkage with the flood, and it's linked with Moses' time on Mount Sinai in Exodus. Important number 40. Mark indicates that Jesus did not go into the wilderness to be on some kind of silent contemplative retreat. Jesus is literally cast out, driven out into the wilderness by the spirit where he is put through trials and challenges. [00:34:39] (30 seconds)  #FortyDaysOfTesting

Isaiah thirty four eight to 14 says that wild animals and demons are in the wilderness. Perhaps Mark is making that connection. It's a really evocative image about Jesus' first days of ministry. One of the things that this story about Jesus' time of testing in the wilderness says to me is that early on, from the very beginning, [00:35:28] (25 seconds)  #WildernessAndWildBeasts

the way Jesus walked was a way of peril, a way of difficulty and testing. And by implication, if we are gonna follow the way of Jesus walking with him, well, then it's reasonable to expect peril, difficulty, and testing too. [00:35:54] (18 seconds)  #WayOfPeril

purifying the self, shedding other crutches, and relying for a time only on God. Here at the beginning of Lent, we have an opportunity to be honest about some of the trials and temptations of the Christian life, of the way of following Jesus, and the way that Jesus, victor over temptation, strengthens us in our times of testing. [00:37:52] (25 seconds)  #LentenPurification

The wilderness could be described as the challenges we all face. The pandemic season might feel like a wilderness, but it's a place, a zone, a time of testing. Jesus was driven, but he chose to let himself be driven. What would it mean for us and our people to see ourselves as driven into a time of testing, [00:37:28] (24 seconds)  #WildernessOfTesting

Our own attempts to follow Jesus will surely have some of the same character of tempting and testing with which Jesus struggled at the beginning of his ministry. We all really have our own wild beasts to confront. So what are those wild things out there waiting in the dark to jump? Maybe the beasts we most fear are different for each one of us. [00:37:02] (26 seconds)  #FaceYourWildBeasts

This is the first Sunday of Lent, and we're in the wilderness. Lent will end in the Garden Of Gethsemane, but even that garden was also a wilderness, a time of testing and struggle for Jesus. Now we all have our own challenges. We even have our own drive to prevail and conquer the wilderness. [00:36:41] (22 seconds)  #LentWildernessJourney

These are all challenges. These are all wild beasts we deal with. But please note that this dark warning of a story that Mark tells us here at the beginning of Lent, the story of Jesus' temptations at the beginning of his ministries is not told just as a warning, but even more so, it is told as encouragement. [00:43:20] (22 seconds)  #EncouragementInTesting