Sunday Sermon 21st Feb 2021

 Mark 1: 9-15

The late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was once asked by a journalist what she believed to be the basis of the Christian faith. Her reply was just one word “choice”. For her, faith was all about making a choice. The choice to believe and follow or to reject it all as fairy stories and just rely on ourselves to handle whatever life brings?

I didn’t often agree with Mrs. Thatcher, but in this instance I believe that she was right. Lent gives us the opportunity to make a choice about our faith and about Jesus. In fact, I would say that Lent is one of the seasons of the church which demands we think about our faith.

No matter which year it is in the church cycle of readings, there are some constants. One is the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness following his baptism where he is affirmed by God.

As Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days to prepare himself for his ministry, the 40 days of Lent is a time of preparation for us as we lead up to the momentous events of Holy Week.

For the Jewish people, the desert was a place where God was encountered. And there is an ancient Christian tradition of people seeking God in the desert or the wilderness; of monasteries built in the most inhospitable places and clinging to cliff faces. Because sometimes we need silence and to get away from distractions if we want to hear the voice of God.

When we were last in Israel we were taken into the wilderness and sat on a high cliff looking down on a 14 th century monastery, and the only noise we could hear was the wind blowing through the rocks.

It was quite eerie. There was nothing but nature and God. Immediately after Jesus baptism, he is led into the desert by the Spirit to face temptation. Jesus is alone and very vulnerable. And the experience of his baptism must have seemed a distant memory. It’s a time now for Jesus to make a choice: to serve God, to serve Satan or to go back to being a carpenter in Nazareth.

Jesus’ baptism and temptation parallel the experience of the exodus of the people of Israel from Egypt, whose baptism in the Red Sea was followed by their temptation in the wilderness: they asked for a God they could see, they asked for food and drink and they asked Moses why he had led them into the wilderness to die.

The things which Satan offered Jesus in the wilderness were things that might appeal to each of us. We eat when we are hungry; we like to be self-sufficient, and to have power and to have pride in ourselves and our achievements.

Each of the three suggestions which the devil puts before Jesus sounds quite reasonable “if you are the son of God – feed yourself, put yourself in physical danger so that God might save you; and worship me and you can have everything you ever wanted.” That we are here this morning testifies to Jesus response.

I think that this past year, with COVID and social isolation and masks and handwashing and being stuck at home, not able to meet with our families and friends, has given us a taste of what loneliness, uncertainty and isolation feels like.

And just when we thought it was all behind us, we took a step backwards and went through it all again, albeit for a short time. Isolation can have nothing at all to do with location. We can be in our homes or even at the local shopping centre, and still feel isolated. We learn that we do need community, we do need each other and for many people, we need our God.

Because it is in these difficult times that we can be most vulnerable to the belief that God has abandoned us, or that we have no purpose in life. Or, the experience can bring us closer to God because God might be the only option open to us. To paraphrase the Message translation of the Bible, it is when we are at the end of our rope, that we find God waiting for us.

Jesus was the man who was kind to those in need, but who was despised by some. He was the man who cured the sick when no one else could. He was the man who took a little food and provided an abundant feast for thousands with food left over. He was the man who calmed the storms, and walked on water.

Jesus ministry was to preach the good news, teach people about God and to heal them. In each of those things, his purpose was not just to do clever tricks to impress people - his purpose was to restore relationships with God.

Nothing has changed for 2000 years. We are still invited to make a choice: to choose God, or to decline God’s love. And the choice is not a once-off.

Every morning as we rise, we need to make a choice: to follow or not. As we walk together through Lent, my prayer is that we will all continue to choose God, each and every day.

AMEN