God in the Desert

With this first Sunday of Lent in the year of Mark, we are ushered into the desert rather abruptly:
“The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.  He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.” (Mk 1:12-13)

That’s it?  On the strength of these two sentences, we are sent – driven – into a land of emptiness, drought, danger, and struggle.  Is this the same Spirit who alighted upon Jesus at his baptism to anoint him as God’s Beloved?  Does he now turn on him and toss him out into the void, leaving him prey to the destroyer of life, hope and love?  What is this: tough love in the heart of the Blessed Trinity?  Perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye.

What about those wild beasts?  The Desert Fathers and Mothers chose to follow the Spirit’s lead into the desert to wrestle with Satan and to be with wild beasts.  Abba Antony of Egypt said: “Obedience with abstinence gives people power over wild beasts.”  The monk’s first task is to struggle with the inner beasts of lust, anger, pride, and the rest.  The desert is an arena of combat, but one in which it is possible to make peace.  Those abbas and ammas who found purity of heart and returned to a state of original innocence and freedom, ran naked amid the wild animals of the desert, fed, protected, and cared for by them.  This pattern has been repeated in the lives of saints who lived in harmony with wild animals: St. Columbanus shared a cave with a wild bear; sea otters kept St. Cuthbert’s feet warm; St. Godric welcomed a hunted stag into his home; St. Francis made a pact with the violent wolf of Gubbio; and St. Seraphim of Sarov took a bear as his pet and close friend.  Peace with the wild beasts means peace with oneself.  

All these stories hark back to Adam and Eve’s paradisal friendship with every beast, whom God gave them and invited them to name.  We are also reminded of the covenant with Noah, related in today’s first reading, in which God says:
“See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you: all the birds, and the various tame and wild animals that were with you and came out of the ark.” (Gn 8:9-10)
Noah also lived with wild beasts for forty days and forty nights.  The ark is another Eden, and so is the desert of Lent, for those who are willing to be taken there.

And what about the angels?  There is a gentle, tender side to the desert experience suggested by the presence of ministering angels.  This is a place where, in spite of all appearances, God draws near.  He provided bread, water and even meat for the Israelites in the desert.  He is teaching his children to rely on him, to recognize him as the source of their being, to love him.  Where the wild beasts stand for the unruly but tamable impulses of our human nature, the presence of angels speaks to our capacity to receive God, also implanted in our nature.  Jesus was in the desert not only with wild beasts, but with angels ministering to him.  He was still God’s Beloved after all.

We hear an echo of Psalm 90, our Compline psalm:
“For you has he commanded his angels,
To keep you in all your ways.” (Ps 90:11)
In fact, Psalm 90 is everywhere today.  Both the Introit and Communion chant for today’s Mass reference the same psalm.  In the translation we use at Compline every night, these verses read:
Introit:
“When he calls, I shall answer I am with you;
I will save him in distress and give him glory.
With length of life, I will content him.” (Ps 90:15-16)
Communion:
“He will conceal you with his pinions,
And under his wings you will find refuge.
His faithfulness is buckler and shield.” (Ps 90:4)

Recently, I happened to be praying Compline by myself in the hermitage.  To be honest, I find it rather difficult to pray the Office there, because the lack of community support leaves me prey to great distractibility and my thoughts wander off the map.  So I usually make sure to have the text in front of me, and try to nail my heart and mind to it so that I can get through without finding myself in Timbuktu.  This time, however, I felt invited simply to lie on my bed and recite the psalms from memory, word by word.  As I lay there in a posture of complete receptivity, the psalm touched me more deeply than ever before.

This is a magnificent prayer of trust in the God who longs to draws near to us, to overshadow us with his protective care, to snatch us from every danger and bring us to fulfillment under his wings.  It is the perfect desert prayer.  Yes, we are in a land of emptiness, drought, danger, and struggle, but we dwell under the shade of the Almighty.  The one condition is that we let him do everything for us, let him feed, clothe, and care for us, let him free us from all that holds us captive:
“Since he clings to me in love, I will free him,
Protect him for he knows my name.” (Ps 90:14)
Wherever and whenever we feel lacking in resources, in whatever kind of desert we find ourselves, this is the moment to lean back with full confidence on the provident care of the Father, as Jesus did.  The lesson of the desert is to expect God’s kindness, to rely on no other source, to seek no other solace.  Our fast is not from bread, but from whatever in our way of living reinforces our self-reliance, our independence, our sense of: I’m in control here, I don’t need anyone to care for me, to provide for me.

Today the Spirit is driving us into the desert to discover God’s love anew.  The Church offers us Psalm 90 as the theme song of our Lenten journey.  It’s already our theme song – we sing it every night before we go to bed.  But do we hear it?  Do the words sink in?  What we need to learn ever more deeply is that at every moment God is giving us what we need.  Even now, at this moment in history, God is giving what the world needs, what the Church needs, what our country needs, what our community needs, what each one of us needs.  We have only to trust him.

Image: Christ in the Wilderness - The Scorpion, by Stanley Spencer