leaving home - mark 1:9-15

At some point in our lives we all leave home.
It is something we do throughout our lives.
We leave those places that are familiar, comfortable, predictable,
sometimes eagerly,
other times when life circumstances force us out the door. Regardless of how or why it happens,
leaving home is a part of life.

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Leaving home can be difficult, frightening, and risky.
It invites us to change
and opens us to new discoveries about ourselves.
 It challenges our understandings of who we are
where we find significance, meaning, and security.

Leaving home is not, however,
simply about the circumstances of life.
It is the way of God’s people.
Adam and Eve left the garden.
Noah left his dry land home.
God told Abram:

Go from your country and your kindred
and your father’s house to the land that I will show you." (Gen 12:1)

Jacob ran away from home fearing for his life.
Moses and the Israelites left their homes in Egypt.
And in today’s gospel Jesus is leaving Nazareth.

As Mark tells it, Jesus leaves Nazareth
and now stands with John in the Jordan,
the border between home and the wilderness.

There he is baptized.
The heavens are torn apart,
the Spirit like a dove descends,
and a voice declares:

“You are my Son, the Beloved;
with you I am well pleased.” 
From there
“the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” (Mark 1:9-15)

This story is not, however, just about Jesus.
It is our story too.
The Father’s words refer to Jesus in a uniquely literal way
but they also apply to each one of us.
By grace, gift, and the choice of God
we are his beloved daughters and sons.
If leaving home, getting baptized, and going to the wilderness
is Jesus’s way then it is our way too.

We leave behind our old identity,
we are identified and claimed by God as his children,
and we go to the wilderness.

That’s what this holy season of Lent is about.
Lent is about leaving home
and leaving home, in Lent and life,
always takes us to the wilderness.

The wilderness is an in between place.
It is a threshold.
We have left behind what was
and what will be is not yet clear.

In the wilderness we come face to face with the reality of our lives;
things done and left undone,
our fears, our hopes and dreams,
our sorrows and losses,
as well as the unknown.

We leave home and experience wilderness temptations
to discover that our most authentic identity
is as a beloved child of God
and our only real home is with God.

The wilderness is new territory for us.
In the wilderness the old structures,
the ones we left behind,
no longer contain, support, or define our life.

In the wilderness our illusions of self-sufficiency
become surrender to God,
our helplessness opens us to God’s grace,
and our guilt is overcome by God’s compassion.

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.

With each remembrance of who we are
the demons are banished.
With each remembrance of who we are
we overcome Satan’s temptations.
With each remembrance of who we are
we take another step toward God.

That is the way through the wildernesses of life.
Remembrance after remembrance.
Step after step.
 “I am a beloved child of God.
With me he is well pleased.”

Let that become our wilderness mantra.
Let those words fill our minds,
cross our lips, and occupy our hearts.
The truth of those words is the way home.

The Lord Be with You!

With Blessings
Rev Jenny