Grace to you from God our Father and our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen
The
text for this meditation is written in the 1st Chapter of the Gospel
according to St Mark: Verses 9–15
9 In those days Jesus came
from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And
when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the
heavens being torn open and the
Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
12 The Spirit immediately drove him out into the
wilderness. 13 And
he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted
by Satan. And he was with the
wild animals, and the angels were
ministering to him.
14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came
into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The
time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand; repent
and believe in the gospel.”
Today’s reading from Mark’s account
of the Gospel covers a lot of ground in a few verses. The Gospel according to Matthew records the
baptism and temptation of Jesus in 16 verses.
Luke records the baptism and temptation in 14 verses. Mark covers both events in 5 verses. The compact writing style of Mark is the
reason why Mark’s Gospel is the shortest of the four. In spite of Mark’s compact writing style,
there are some details of Jesus’ ministry that we can find only in Mark.
One of the advantages of Mark’s
brevity is that it is practical to include more than one event in the Gospel of
the day. Generally speaking, we hear the
account of Jesus’ baptism on the First Sunday after the Epiphany, and we hear
the account of the temptation on the First Sunday in Lent. This means that several weeks pass by between
the reading of these two accounts and we don’t always see the connection
between them. Mark’s compact writing
style bridges that gap. This morning we
heard about both events and we understand that one moment the Holy Spirit was
descending on Jesus and the next moment that same Holy Spirit was driving Jesus
out into the desert in order to confront he devil. This was before He did any teaching or
miracles. It was before He called any
disciples.
We read, “The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.” The Greek could also be translated as, “The Spirit immediately threw him out into the wilderness.” Mark almost gives us the impression that
Jesus was still wet from His baptism when He entered the desert. It is as if the moment the Holy Spirit
descended on Jesus as a dove and said, “Move out! Let’s go to the desert and do battle with the
devil.” Jesus was in perfect agreement
with the Holy Spirit and readily journeyed into the desert.
The important point here is that
this was an intentional confrontation with the devil. It was not a situation where the devil
noticed Jesus fasting in the desert and thought to himself, “Now that He is
hungry, He will be weaker. He will be
easier to tempt. This will be a good
time to tempt Him.” Instead we see Jesus
eager to do battle for us and the Holy Spirit encouraging Him into that battle. The leading of the Holy Spirit teaches us
that this was not some random encounter between enemies. Instead, the temptation was part of the
intentional plan of God at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry.
Mark does not record many details
of the actual temptation. He does tell
us that it was forty days long. He also
tells us that Jesus was with the wild animals.
Jesus in the desert with the wild
animals is a reflection of an Old Testament figure that also went out into the
desert with the wild animals. We
commonly refer to this figure as the scape goat.
The scape goat was a part of the Old
Testament ceremony for the Day of Atonement.
The regulations for the Day of Atonement say this about the scape goat:
[Leviticus 16:21–22] Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the
live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and
all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of
the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in
readiness. 22 The goat shall bear all their iniquities
on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the
wilderness.
The idea was that the goat was
basically an innocent animal. It did not
take on the role of scape goat for itself, but for others. It did not suffer or bear the burden of its
own sins. Instead, it bore the
iniquities, transgressions, and sins of the people of Israel. Aaron, the high priest, confessed the sins of
the nation over the goat. In this way,
he transferred the sins of the people onto the goat. After that a special shepherd led the scape
goat out into the wilderness to be with the wild animals. The goat with all the sins of Israel went out
into the wilderness never to be seen again.
The sins are gone.
There are many similarities between
the scape goat and Jesus. Jesus did not
just appear innocent; He actually was the innocent Son of God. He did not take on the role of sin bearer for
His own sins. Instead, He bore the
iniquities of the entire world. God
Himself placed the sins of the world on Jesus as Isaiah wrote, [Isaiah 53:6b] “The Lord has laid
on him the iniquity of us all.” The
Holy Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness to be with the wild
animals. Jesus carried our sins away so
that no one will ever see them again.
The sins are gone.
Of course, once the special
shepherd set the scape goat free, no one really knew what happened to that
goat. The most likely outcome is that
wild animals ate the scape goat. It is
also possible that a shepherd from another country who knew nothing about the
scape goat would find it and take it home to his own flocks. No one really knew. The point is this: although the symbolism of
the scape goat was that the sins of Israel were gone never to be seen or heard
from again, no one really knew for sure what happened. No one could really, absolutely know that the
goat couldn’t sneak back from the wilderness into someone’s flock.
Fortunately, the scape goat is only
a shadow as we hear from the writer to the Hebrews: [Hebrews 10:1–4] For since the law has but a shadow of the
good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, it can never,
by the same sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect
those who draw near. 2 Otherwise, would they not have
ceased to be offered, since the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no
longer have any consciousness of sins? 3 But in these
sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For
it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. The scape goat is only a shadow that points
forward to the real thing, Jesus Christ.
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Lamb
of God who carries away the sin of the world.
Even though He carried the sin of the entire world into the desert, He
Himself never sinned. He endured and
triumphed over every temptation of the devil. [Hebrews 4:15] We do not have a high priest who is unable to
sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted
as we are, yet without sin. Jesus endured
the temptations of the devil and triumphed.
He not only endured the temptation in the wilderness, but he also
endured all the other temptations that the devil threw at Him as He journeyed
to the cross.
You see, if the devil could have
gotten Jesus to sin just once, He would no longer be able to carry our
sins. He would have sins of His own to
carry. Never the less, Jesus did not
sin. He continued to carry our sin. He carried it all the way to the cross.
With Jesus, we do not have to worry
that our sin might accidently come back to find us again. Jesus took our sin to the cross. There He did battle for us and conquered sin,
death, and the power of the devil. Our
sin is not just gone, but it is powerless.
In fact, Jesus took our sin to the grave and left it there when He rose
from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus
Christ assures us that our sin is not just gone, but it is dead and gone.
The Holy Spirit made His presence
known when Jesus stepped up out of the water from His baptism. That same Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the
desert to confront the devil and his temptations. This teaches us that all these things were
part of the plan.
It is important for us to know that
Jesus endured all the hardships that we endure.
He is our substitute. He doesn’t
just know our lives academically, but He has experienced life as we know
it. He was tempted just as we are
tempted. He also experienced our pain,
our sorrow, our frustrations … He experienced it all except that He never
sinned.
In spite of the fact that He never
sinned, He was full of sin. [2
Corinthians 5:21] For our sake God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so
that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Just as the High Priest placed the sin of
Israel on the scape goat, God has placed the sin of the world on Jesus. He became full of our sin – your sin, my sin,
the sin of the entire world. Jesus has
carried that sin to the cross. As we
remember the cross, we will remember that our sin filled Him as He suffered and
died to pay the penalty that God’s justice demanded – a payment that freed us
from our slavery to sin. We will
remember that God saw Him as a sinner so that He can see us as righteous.
After Jesus endured the temptations
of the devil in the desert, He began proclaiming the Gospel. Because Jesus endured temptation without sin,
His Gospel proclamation is just as valid for us today as it was at the time of
today’s reading from the Gospel. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God
is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Amen
The love and peace of our Great
Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds
in Christ Jesus. Amen
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