Giving up or going on in hard times - a baptismal sermon

It seems to me we need special occasions to remind ourselves of the blessings of life – Christmas, birthdays, weddings, and today baptisms. All these occasions need a time of preparation else they just don’t happen – Christmas needs Advent, birthdays need thinking about buying the right present for someone, weddings take ages to plan, and baptisms, well, Matthew and Erica have thought seriously about bringing Emilia for baptism today, and there has been lots of cooking for afterwards! If you go into any shop that sells chocolate, you’d think it has been Easter since Boxing Day. Like we don’t do Advent really and start singing Christmas carols in mid November, likewise with Easter, we don’t do the 40 days up to it, the season of Lent, the first Sunday of which is today.   

We remember today that Jesus goes out into the wilderness for 40 days, where he wrestles with faith and doubt. Mark says he is “tempted by Satan,” evil personified. Forty days of being tested and tempted in the wilderness. At the end of it, Jesus emerges, but it doesn’t really get any easier. The greatest challenges are still to come.

We are journeying toward Easter. But to get to Easter you have to go through the cross and the tomb. We have dedicated Emilia to God and affirmed his love for her this morning. We want life to be wonderful but we know she will as she grows up face difficult times as well as happy times. Today is a day to ask how we cope with those times.

Jesus is driven into the wilderness. He goes out to a physical place where few people go. He is out there spiritually too, and this is perhaps even scarier. Spiritual wilderness is a place where few people ever dare to go.

After all, who wants to go into the wilderness? I’m not talking about camping and hiking; I’m talking about real wilderness here, where we wrestle with ourselves, and our spirit, and our relationship with God. What good is it? You can’t put it on a CV. It doesn’t earn you any money. It doesn’t really make your life easier; it may even make it harder. So why would you do it?

But that’s exactly what Lent asks of us. For 40 days we are asked to go into a wilderness place and to prepare ourselves for the journey of discipleship. Lent asks us to wrestle with the hard stuff: to pray, to fast, to do something new. To face temptation and to choose to follow Christ anyway.

It’s not popular. Many people will show up at church on Easter morning, but few will have spent these 40 days getting ready. Everyone likes a party; not everyone likes setting up for it. But those of us who choose to make this 40-day wilderness journey may discover something meaningful along the way: Christ is there, too. We’ve often been in the wilderness, but now we’ve found that we’re not alone.

That’s good news, because the reality of our lives is that we spend a lot of time lost. We spend a lot of time facing temptation and wrestling with God, a lot of time alone with our demons. Jesus knew what that was like. So in Lent we have the opportunity to spend 40 days not alone but with one who has been there before.

Have you ever had a hard time with faith? Jesus knew what that was like. Do you struggle to make hard choices? So did Jesus. Are you grieving? Jesus grieved, too. Are you preparing yourself for something new, something you don’t know how you are going to survive? Jesus knew what that was like, too.

I’m convinced that when we go through these wilderness times, God looks at us with nothing but compassion and love. After all, God watched God’s own child go through such a time, too.

40 days. The number 40 is very important in sacred thinking.

What were you doing 40 years ago today, the 18th February 1978, I wonder? Can you remember? I can! A lot of you weren’t born! I was nearly 11. I wonder what the world will be like on the 18th February 2058, or daren’t we think about it. We’ve seen so many changes in the world since 1978, the world then might be unrecognisable. I’ll be 91 if I’m still here, and Emilia will be 41! 

40 in the Bible is a very special number… think about it for a moment.

Noah first – Noah faced 40 days of a great flood, and was saved with his family and two of every kind of living creature.

The Israelites wandered for 40 years in the wilderness, coming out of Egypt, anticipating the land of promise by God.

Moses didn’t eat for 40 days and nights while he received the law at Mount Sinai and spoke with God.

Elijah travelled for 40 days towards the mountain of God in the strength of food given to him by an angel.

Ezekiel lay on his right side for forty days as a sign of the sins of Israel.

All of these episodes of 40 speak to me of serious spiritual preparation, almost before life, real life with God could begin. Noah represented a new beginning with God after several disasters at the beginning of Genesis; the Israelites needed time to learn how to live as a people being instructed by God before they could appreciate fully the delights of the Promised Land; and Jesus, had 40 ardous, soul searching days in the middle of nowhere, thinking about his ministry and his calling as God’s son, before the work could truly begin.

Maybe, just maybe, we need those times of God centredness too. Perhaps not 40 days, but some time, to think about what it means to be God’s people serving him here in this place today. We will struggle sometimes, like Jesus, and the other people I’ve mentioned today did, but God invites us to his throne, into his presence, where there is grace. We need time to be ready to receive that presence, getting rid maybe of the clutter of life. After a time of real preparation for anything, life can be fuller, can begin, can develop.

In the desert, Jesus was led by the Spirit into a solitary, lonely place.  What did He meet there?   What do we meet in the watches of the night?   At times, we may be at peace, contented, at deep rest in our stillness.  At other times, while the outer voices have gone, the inner voices, the voices from deep within the soul, of doubt, insecurity, shame, failure and weakness all come bubbling to the surface.  In the desert, alone, Jesus is wrestling with Himself, facing down His own demons.  

The wilderness is not a place where I go willingly.  It frightens me.  It bewilders me.  It confuses me.  I find it hard to get my bearings in the wilderness.  Even Jesus had to be driven into the wilderness.  And no wonder, for the wilderness is a place filled with wild things and tempters and all sorts of threats to one’s security and tranquillity and comfort.  The wilderness is a dangerous place.  An unpredictable place.  A place where even your sense of self is shaken to its core.  It’s a place I don’t even like to visit or revisit.

Sometimes I wonder just what Jesus’ temptations were. Mark doesn’t list them like the other Gospels.  Do you think he was tempted to give it all up?  Surely he must have suspected the cost of the road he was called to walk.   I wonder if he doubted his own gifts, his ability to live into God’s call to him?  I bet he was afraid.  Maybe giving into fear was one of those temptations. 

Yet remember the last words Jesus heard before he was catapulted into that wilderness.  “You are my son, my beloved.  With you I am well pleased.”  That makes all the difference in the world.  In those times of fear and temptation, in those wilderness times when it feels like we have nothing to hold onto, we, like Jesus, have those words, “You are my child, my beloved.  With you and you and you I am well pleased.”  The love of God—it can get you through the day, it can get you through the night, it can get you through the moment.  And it can get you through the wilderness times. And the times you want to give up.

I love the Winter Olympics don’t you? You sit up late watching curling. You don’t understand it, but you are engrossed in it and you discover it is 2am! Then there’s those tea trays with people on them hurling down the ice. What about Lizzie Yarnold, retaining her title? What made her victory even more extraordinary was how close she had come to dropping out due to her struggles with a chest infection. She had to be helped off the track on Friday: “My chest infection was stopping me from breathing. If it wasn’t for my physio telling me to go down again, I’m not sure I would be here today. “I was dizzy, I couldn’t breathe. I have no idea what happened. I’ve been ill for a week.” Perhaps it was the long term goal that kept her going. Perhaps knowing Lent doesn’t last for ever keeps us going, temptation, driven into hard times won’t be the last word. 

For Emilia today the promise we make for her that she is beloved of God through all of life’s passage.

For those of you who’ve come to support Erica and Matthew today perhaps you don’t go to church very often, perhaps you don’t have a faith, but today we say to you remember whatever you face you don’t face it alone, we believe in a Jesus who gets what life is like, the trouble, the questions, the times we are nearly broken.

We can never escape or avoid the wilderness. Like Jesus, we must go through it. We must face the temptations of Satan and be with the wild beasts. Yet we never go alone. The angels that ministered to Jesus will be there for us. “Remember who you are,” is their message. “You are a beloved son of God. You are a beloved daughter of God. You are one with whom he is well pleased.” Over and over they tell us. They remind us. They encourage and reassure us.

So we begin a healthy and holy Lent trying to get closer to God however we choose to do that. Lent isn’t popular. We want the chocolate eggs now. We want the cross to be full of flowers now, not stark. We want the joy but not the pain. Many people will show up at church on Easter morning, but few will have spent these 40 days getting ready. Everyone likes a party; not everyone likes setting up for it.

But those of us who choose to make this 40-day wilderness journey may discover something meaningful along the way: Christ is there, too.