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Today is the First Sunday of Lent.
I leave the seventeenth-century poet, Robert Herrick, to set the season’s spiritual tone:
Is this a fast, to keep
the larder lean?
And clean
from fat of veals and sheep?
Is it to quit the dish
of flesh, yet still
to fill
the platter high with fish?
Is it to fast an hour,
or ragg'd to go,
or show
a downcast look and sour?
No; 'tis a fast to dole
thy sheaf of wheat,
and meat,
unto the hungry soul.
It is to fast from strife,
from old debate
and hate;
to circumcise thy life.
To show a heart grief-rent;
to starve thy sin,
not bin;
and that's to keep thy Lent.
— Robert Herrick, “To Keep a True Lent” (1648)
Genesis 9:8-17
God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”
God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”
Mark 1:9-15
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
On the first Sunday of Lent, it is a tradition to preach about Jesus’ temptation in the desert. The familiar story appears in the three synoptic gospels — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — and is the subject of innumerable works of art, musical pieces, poetry, novels, theater, and film through the long centuries of Christianity.
Matthew and Luke have extended accounts of the temptation, giving details of how Satan baited Jesus with promises of provision, protection, and power. But not Mark. The shortest gospel also has the most succinct account of the story:
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
That’s it. Two sentences on this event. Not only is it brief, but it is also oddly paired with the Hebrew Bible reading. Matthew’s extended account is twinned with the temptation of Eve and Adam in Genesis; Luke’s rendition is presented with Moses’ charge to Israel as they leave the wilderness for the Promised Land in Deuteronomy.
But the abbreviated Mark version is matched with an unusual choice: the story of the rainbow from Genesis. After the flood, God established a covenant with humankind to never destroy the earth and makes the rainbow a sign of that vow.
Thus, in the opening days of Lent — from Ash Wednesday to this first Sunday of the season — we move from ashes to rainbows. It seems like a head-spinning transition!
There’s another odd thing about Mark’s temptation. Although the temptation follows Jesus’ baptism in all three gospels, both Luke and Matthew separate the baptism from the wilderness by other verses or a narrative break. There’s a pause, a breathing space.
Only Mark clearly and immediately links Jesus’ baptism with the temptation. And he does so by highlighting the divine declaration: “‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”
A promise, a proclamation of love, made in the flood tide of baptism, the holy presence. Surely the words in the Jordan were a kind of covenant, a vow, a sign. And then the wilderness, the sacred struggle.
Did Jesus see rainbows in the desert? Maybe the angels ministered to him with prismatic streams of light.
These are, of course, sacred stories — about mythic floods and mystical temptations, with devils and angels and wild beasts and heavenly voices. Some people take them literally, some symbolically, and still others poetically. Yet the theological truths of ashes and rainbows in both the Old and New Testaments stand together: Even in the most overwhelming floods and the emptiest of deserts, amid the most frightening wastes of our lives, God promises and pledges love, companionship, and protection.
Those ashes are a sign of our finitude, our mortality. Like the sands of the wilderness, they symbolize the flood of death we all face. But there is something else: a proclamation of everlasting fidelity, of belovedness. The vow. The sign in the clouds that God will remember God’s own promises to us — that rainbow. Death and life are bound up together. Jesus held on to that in his desert. It must have sustained him in those forty days.
No matter what the circumstance, God never forgets God’s promises. God can’t. Because of that token in the skies. I love that the rainbow reminds God of the promise, even as it reminds us. Perhaps that’s the most important lesson of Mark’s Lent — God won’t forget and we shouldn’t.
Sometimes Christians get caught up in a gloomy Lenten theology, believing this season is solely memento mori, “remember your death.” Of course, it is about ashes — a view seemingly supported by even contemporary evidence. Each morning the news reports some new apocalypse; we are surrounded by doom and our fear of the end of everything. Horror piles upon horror. People regularly intone, “We must be realistic.” And it is true: we live in truly challenging times with great threats on all sides. There are terrible things happening throughout the world. How can anyone forget death? It is impossible to escape.
Memento mori is the air we breathe. Ashes are easy.
This first Sunday in Lent, in this Lent shaped by Mark’s story, asks us to remember the opposite: memento vitae, “remember to live.” Look to the skies after the rain! Memento vitae! Listen for the voice coming up from the water — you beloved one of God! Memento vitae! That’s the everlasting covenant, the promise that brings us through the wilderness.
Memento mori, indeed. Memento vitae, yes, YES, YES!
We humans get fixated staring at our dusty, wilderness-weary feet when from just beyond the torn skies and threatening clouds come doves and rainbows.
So, this Lent, look up. Immediately. Don’t hesitate. Mark beckons us to a radical Lenten faith — to trust in rainbows even when covered with ash. Remember your life. Remember your neighbor’s life. Remember we are alive. Here. Now. Memento vitae.
After every wilderness comes life. God promised.
Perhaps remembering — and acting on — that is the hardest Lenten discipline of all.
The Lenten series, “Crossings,” begins tomorrow, Monday, February 19.
Crossings: Reimagining and Practicing the Cross, our Lent reflection series, is offered for the paid community. This is not intended as something exclusive but to create a more intimate environment of conversation and sharing for those seeking a different sort of Lent experience.
Those who are part of the series will receive three posts a week during Lent — each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
On Monday, you’ll receive an email to introduce the weekly theme with scripture verses, photographs, and poetry. On Wednesday, the post will be a meditation/sermon on reimagining the Cross. On Friday, there will be a video reflection from special guests.
You can also expect a couple of surprises along the way.
And, at the end of the series, you’ll be able to download a pdf booklet of the previously unpublished sermons for you to keep.
INSPIRATION
It was the hour when night makes the mountains lament
And the crags creak under the footsteps of animals,
The birds flew away from the countryside like poison
To get to the sea, to get to a better horizon.
Pursuing a poet then the devil went.
For there the sea powdered the edge of a bay
And covered the skin of the giant rocks with scales.
But Jesus, with fire shining behind his head,
Came to climb up the black crags, bearing the cross.
The poet stretched out his arms towards the Savior
And everything vanished: the somber night and the beasts.
The poet followed God for his happiness.
— Max Jacob, “Rainbow”
I didn’t know the poet until discovering this particular poem. Jacob was a Jewish convert to Catholicism, part of the early 20th century bohemian arts movement, who roomed with Pablo Picasso, and was arrested by the Nazis for having been born a Jew (conversion didn’t matter to them) and being a homosexual. He died in a concentration camp in 1944.
If you are already a paid subscriber, make sure your credit card up to date. There are lots of renewals in February and March — and I don’t want you to miss a thing!
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Cottage Conversation Sampler: Jim Wallis on “Civic Discipleship”
Last Thursday, the Cottage hosted a conversation for the paid community with Jim Wallis about his new book, The False White Gospel. We explored Jim’s vision for “civic discipleship” through a “theology of democracy.” It was a surprisingly hopeful offering for those of us are worried about the future of democracy.
The entire discussion ran for slightly over an hour with a lively Q&A. However, I wanted everyone to hear at least some of this interview. So, here’s a 13 minute clip of the longer video. Take time to listen — and please consider pre-ordering the book. It could be a good group read for an adult education class (it would lend itself to a six week series) on religion and politics, especially in congregations nervous engaging the subject.
It is a great sample of the paid subscriber Third Thursday Conversations as well!
The way I see it, if you want the rainbow,
you gotta put up with the rain!
— Dolly Parton
Maybe I've overlooked it, but where is the passage from Mark pulling in the flood/rainbow story?
Some have observed, "Never again with a flood." But given P's collapse of creation and now this, with God's weapon of destruction hung up, the opportunity for a reboot given aims . . . for what? Us to do better? Hasn't happened. In that case, God to do something different? I should certainly hope so. Something we can't, 'cause the problem is us, and left to ourselves we can destroy the world, quickly or slowly. So God "RIPS OPEN" the Heavens and declares this rustic peasant to be God doing something different . . . decisively. Mark's depiction of Jesus in the wilderness recalls Jewish legend about the Human in the Garden at peace among the wild animals and with angels waiting upon the Human. We've got New Creation language, here. The reboot. Paul picks it up. Do we?