The Angels Took Care of Him

A sermon for the first Sunday in Lent given at the United Church of Acworth, Acworth, NH on February 26, 2012.

Genesis 9:8-17

Psalm 25:1-10

1 Peter 3:18-22

Mark 1:9-15

I want to focus on the temptation story in today’s gospel reading.

“And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels took care of him.” (Mark 1:12-13) (NRSV spliced with The Message)

The angels took care of him.

While there are many ways we can take the story of Jesus’ temptation I want to focus on one particular part of it.

The angels took care of him.

Jesus was son of Man -- a human being and as a human being experienced the world just like we experience it. The word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.

When we read how Jesus was baptized in the Jordan by John, we saw a higher reality break open and God speak the words: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” Jesus was son of God.

Son of God, son of Man. The one who would be our Mediator to make peace between God and humanity and usher forth a new time where God would through God’s children make this peace known and realized throughout the world.

And here it starts: first a baptism, then a forceful driving into the wilderness.

Lent is a time of remembering our humanity.

In Marquand chapel at Yale Divinity School on Wednesday I went forward and received ashes upon my forehead in the shape of a cross. I was told, “For dust you are and to dust you shall return.”

We are all dust. We are all from the dust, like the first human beings we have the breath of God breathed into us and so we talk, we sing, we cry, we praise, we love, we laugh, we strive, we struggle.

And Jesus did too. Jesus was dust like us. The word of God became flesh and dwelt among us.

And so we see Jesus baptized – identifying with us in our need for the washing and cleansing and newness of God’s water.

And we see Jesus driven into the wilderness, tempted and tried – struggling.

Life is a struggle. The wilderness follows the baptism very quickly – Immediately even.

We, like Jesus, have been commissioned for a new life, a ministry of our own. Our baptism is our entry into a life of following Jesus in this world – that we might know God and make God known to a world that needs to know God.

And as soon as we were commissioned for this ministry – immediately we found ourselves in times of hard struggle.

Perhaps you are the one lucky human being who has not struggled, who has not been tempted and tried and hard worn in a kind of wilderness.

But most of us have seen that wilderness, some of us are there right now.

At Bible Study last Sunday we talked about Jesus calming the storm and shared stories of various storms in our lives and how we reacted – take a moment and think of a wilderness time – a time that felt like great hunger, great thirst, great isolation, alienation. Remember and feel that struggle.

I took a year off after two years of college. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go. There was much uncertainty. The only thing I did feel certain of was that I was quite uncertain of everything.

And believe it or not, my faith was included in that “everything.” Sometimes the wilderness is a time of great doubt, the silence of God, the absence of the Spirit’s presence. We lose our confidence, our perceived control over our world.

I was working two jobs which combined gave me 62 hours a week. I waited tables during the weekdays and worked with a campus security weeknights and weekend nights.

At one of the jobs I worked weekend night shifts as a security officer at a liberal arts college. I would sit by myself in a lobby from 11pm to 7am and make sure that no suspicious characters tried to enter the dorm. Needless to say my social life suffered. I would go to bed at 7:30am and sometimes not wake up until 5 PM. I would eat a supper-breakfast, perhaps watch a movie by myself and then go back to work. Sometimes I would hear of a gathering that was happening somewhere and I would make it for a time only to leave early to go spend the night by myself once again in that dorm lobby.

I look back at this time as a dark and lonely time. I was unable to attend church – or if I did I didn’t get much out of it being so brutally exhausted.

I felt alone and in my loneliness I questioned everyone’s love for me especially God’s. I felt empty and like there was no way forward.

I’ll spare you more details but suffice to say it was a painful and certainly a kind of wilderness wandering for me.

I think as much as it was an incredibly difficult time for me, it was also one of the most important seasons of my life. I was forced to a place where I didn’t know, I wasn’t in control, I was forced to seek God and wrestle with how I fit in to this world – where was God? Where was I?

That was a time that formed my faith, my perseverance as a human being, my trust in God like no other time.

I remember the moment it ended. I was back in church for the first time in a long spell – perhaps forty days?

And I went forward to receive the bread and the wine and came back to my seat and cried at the beauty of God’s love, God’s care.

Many of us have been through times of silence, of emptiness, of loneliness, and some of us are there now. We remember how meaningful it is when someone comes alongside of us and shows grace and love to us.

Jesus was in the wilderness tempted by the great enemy of life—but the angels came to him and took care of him.

I remember in the middle of that time in my life – I was in uniform, it was about 9 o clock and I was at my friend’s house with a number of people who had gathered to watch a movie. I didn’t want to watch a movie. I could do that by myself. So I went to the kitchen and there I stood and hung out with a friend who would later become my wife. Rachelle listened to me as I complained about how lonely and empty I’d been feeling and she gave me a hug.

That was a light in the darkness of my wilderness.

At that moment she was the angel ministering to me in the wilderness.

She showed me the grace of God who comes alongside us in our struggles.

Have you struggled? Did someone come to you in that time?

Rachelle and I went to a dinner in Newton, Massachusetts on Friday night. It was foolish to go out with such omens of a coming snowy/icy mess. But I’m still new to this wisdom thing and so I drove us to Newton. On our way back the rain was heavy in Newton, in Lexington, in Derry, in Concord. And when we got to Henniker the sound on the windshield changed. The cars slowed down and we entered a train of a dozen cars going through icy/snowy mix on route 9, now spinning now swerving.

We left the train at the intersection of 123 and drove through Stoddard all alone. I was very concerned about getting up and over Pitcher Mtn. The only other real concern would be the final leg up hill rd. (I still don’t have snow tires).

I was praying hard as I made my way up Pitcher Mtn. Thanking God for safety as I slowed down and carefully made my way down.

Then we got to S. Acworth. There is no good way to get momentum from 123A up Hill Rd. I was spinning and swerving and getting nowhere up the hill. So Rachelle took over and I pushed. We made it passed the first steep part and had good momentum going up. When we saw a young man walking with a backpack on, covered in snow. Should we stop? We’d lose our own hard-earned momentum.

We decided to stop. He unsurprisingly took us up on our offer for a ride. Then we started to drive again and nothing but spinning.

He and I got to push again and we eventually got going again.

He had been walking since Green Acres and was going to Coffin Hill Rd. He also took us up on our offer to stay the night at the Parsonage.

We all are human beings, we are all God-breathed spirited dust. We are all on this journey together, at various times we revel in the sunlight at other times we spin our tires and swerve and give up hope for going forward.

Or perhaps we are walking a long dark and snowy road, cold and thirsty with miles ahead of us until refreshment.

Or perhaps we are experiencing the absence of joy, the silence of God in our lives.

Jesus was in the wilderness, alone, hungry, thirsty, tried and tempted, struggling. And the angels came to him and took care of him.

There is a song many of you know that I’ve sung many times in my life and always am moved by its words.

Brother, let me be your servant. Let me be as Christ to you.

Pray that I might have the grace To let you be my servant, too.

In this time of Lent when many of us are attempting to cut things out of our lives to be able to draw closer to God, we may find that especially at this time we need each other as angels to give care.

Allow yourself to be humbled and receive that care from others and as you receive that care, give that care on to others. We are servants one of another. We are God’s agents of care in a world where many are hurting, many are experience wilderness, difficult roads.

Brothers, Sisters let us be that sorely needed friend to those among us who need that comfort, and perhaps even the stranger we encounter on our various paths this week.

For we are all human beings, and just as Christ identified with our humanity and struggled with us, so let us struggle with others, bearing each others burdens and fulfilling the law of Christ.

Remember the wildernesses that you have struggled through and the ministering angels God sent and go out and be a messenger of God’s comfort and grace to those around you.

Amen.