“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless. 2 And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you exceedingly numerous.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face; and God said to him, 4 “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7 I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.
15 God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16 I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”” – Genesis 17:1-7, Genesis 17:15-16
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23 “You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! 24 For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him. 25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. 26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD. May your hearts live forever! 27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. 28 For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. 29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. 30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, 31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.” — Psalm 22:23-31
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31 “Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 38 Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”” – Mark 8:31-38
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On this second Sunday of Lent, our theme for today is “A Desert People”. Pastor Dylan mentioned in our Thursday night group a couple weeks ago that in the early church, both men and women sometimes went out into the desert to fast and pray and to get away from the temptations and busy-ness of the world. Even today, during Lent, people still fast and pray to draw nearer to God.
The theory behind observing Lent, as the family of faith has always taught, is that the annual remembrance of Jesus’ Cross and Resurrection are things we need to prepare our hearts for. We use this time to walk more closely with the Lord through fasting, or through acts of charity towards the poor, the sick, the hungry, and the homeless.
But what does it mean to be a “Desert Person”?
For me, one of the first things that comes to mind is the old movie Lawrence of Arabia. (Yes I know I’m dating myself.) This movie was based on the life of a real person whose last name was Lawrence, who was born and raised in England, joined the army in 1914, and was stationed in Arabia during the First World War. He worked alongside both Brits and Arabs, but over time he became close friends with the Arabs and basically ended up ‘going native’.
There’s a point in the movie where Lawrence has been given Arabian clothes to wear: he puts on the turban, the baggy white pants – very lightweight and flowing because the weather is so hot – and the lightweight white Abaya robe over top. He’s alone at the time, but he walks around in his new clothes, with the wind blowing through them, and you can almost see him changing from a Brit into an Arab. He has become a new man with new loyalties, and he will never again be completely comfortable being British.
In a similar way, the people of God are people who are called to the desert. The people of ancient Israel traveled through the desert; Jesus was tempted in the desert; and today we live in a world that is a spiritual desert. And as Christians, we (like Lawrence) are called to new loyalties, and a new country: the kingdom of God. When we become Christians, we put on the white robes Jesus gives us, and we become new people with new loyalties. We can no longer be comfortable with who we were before.
In our scriptures today we see what this has meant for God’s people in both the Old Testament and the New; and perhaps we can find, in their experiences, things we can relate to today.
We turn first to the Old Testament and the story of Abram. The Bible does not tell us a whole lot about Abram’s background, other than to say he was from Ur of the Chaldees. Ur was about 200 miles southeast of modern-day Baghdad. Imagine this: when God called Abram, Abram left everything he knew – his homeland, his culture, his extended family – and traveled northwest, following the River Euphrates – through Babylon (which is modern-day Iraq), then through Syria, and then turning southwest through Damascus and Hebron and ending up near Bethel near the Dead Sea. It was a distance of about 2200 miles that Abram walked with his family and his flocks of animals! That’s about the distance from New York City to Tempe AZ. Abram did this because God asked him to.
In our reading today, Abram has just settled in his new land, and it’s been a number of years since he heard God’s voice. But now God comes and speaks with him again and says: “I will make a covenant with you. I will make your descendants exceedingly numerous; I will make you a great nation; and kings will come from you; and I give you a new name: you are no longer “Abram” (which means ‘exalted father’); you are now Abraham (which means “Father of Multitudes”). God also says Sarai will become “Sarah” which means ‘princess’. And in the Hebrew language, the name “Sarah” is based on the same letters of the alphabet as the name “Israel”.
Hearing all of this, Abraham falls on his face in worship. He believes God; he believes what God has said; and Abraham orients his life around walking with God. He teaches his family to do the same. All of them together become God’s people.
It’s amazing to think that Abraham and Sarah only ever had one son together. Abraham had other children by other wives, but only the son of Abraham and Sarah would build the nation of Israel. This couple with one son will become a multitude, the Jewish people, through whom God has blessed every nation on earth. Even to this day there are Jewish communities in just about every country on the planet – proving how trustworthy God’s word is!
But from where Abraham stood, he took everything on faith. Abraham never saw the fulfillment of God’s promise with his own eyes. Abraham trusted God; and God was faithful.
Moving then to our Psalm for today: the part of the psalm that we read is taken from the tail end of Psalm 22. The first part of the psalm, which we didn’t read, is a prophecy written by King David. I don’t know if David knew it was prophecy when he wrote it; David was bringing to God his pain at being betrayed and attacked for no reason and being unable to find justice. But what David wrote is also a detailed description Jesus’ crucifixion, written 1000 years before crucifixion was invented.
Let me read you the part we missed – and as I do, see how many references to crucifixion and the death of Jesus you can hear in this psalm. How many can you count? Here’s what David wrote:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. 3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 4 In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. 5 To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. 6 But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; 8 “Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver – let him rescue the one in whom he delights!” 9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. 10 On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. 11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. 12 Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; 15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled; 17 I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; 18 they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots. 19 But you, O LORD, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! 20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! 21 Save me from the mouth of the lion! From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.
I’m not sure of the exact number of references to the crucifixion there are, but I counted at least twelve. And to list them all would be another sermon for another day! What we want to see here is this:
There will most likely be times in our lives when all of us feel like God is far away or has abandoned us. But the truth is – and Jesus knew this – that God can be trusted. Jesus said from the cross, to the thief next to him: “this day you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus knew, even in the very worst moment, that God hears those who are in distress, that God listens to anyone who cries out to God.
This prayer of David is the prayer of a ‘desert person’: someone who is in deep trouble and distress, crying out to God to save. This prayer has also been paralleled to Israel’s history – in that Israel as a nation was enslaved and then liberated. For the same reason might also be paralleled to Black American History. It’s not hard to imagine a slave in the deep south a couple hundred years ago praying the words, “Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but I find no rest.” It’s not hard to imagine the people at our southern border praying the same prayer today.
At this point, we turn to Mark’s gospel – where Jesus (who is another desert person) spent 40 days in the wilderness not too long before. He is now in a different kind of wilderness: one where he alone knows what’s about to happen. Jesus knows the cross is on the horizon and he wants his closest friends to understand what he’s facing into. He says to them:
“the Son of Man must undergo great suffering… and be killed, and after three days rise again”.
In Jewish ears – which of course Jesus’ disciples were all Jewish – in Jewish ears the phrase “Son of Man” had a specific meaning. The “Son of Man” was a person the prophet Daniel wrote about: a person who had to do with both the promised Messiah and the end times.
The understanding in Jesus’ time was that “the Messiah would come and lead a military triumph [against] the Roman occupiers and [restore the kingdom] of David…”[1]. That’s most likely what Peter was thinking when he spoke up. Peter – and many people like him at the time – had missed the part in the book of Daniel where the prophet predicted the Messiah would be disgraced, suffer, and die.
There’s a strong parallel between Peter’s thinking and the kind of thinking today where people believe that following Jesus means winning elections and writing Christian values into law. God never works that way. God does not conquer using human power. God didn’t do that in Jesus’ time, and God doesn’t do it now. God’s interest is not in power as we understand it; God already has far more power than we can possibly imagine!
God’s interest is, and always has been, being in relationship with God’s people. But like Peter, our imperfections sometimes get in the way. We human beings still have a touch of darkness in us, and we can’t always see where God is leading from where we stand.
This is why the cross is necessary. Jesus does for us what we can’t do for ourselves: on the Cross, Jesus faces the darkness and defeats it once and for all.
Jesus knows the cross is necessary; and he also knows he will rise again. The disciples, on the other hand, have never seen anyone survive a crucifixion. They can’t grasp what Jesus means by “I’ll be back.”
It’s understandable that Peter doesn’t understand all this; but the way he spoke to Jesus in our scripture reading would have been understood in those days as extremely disrespectful. To our ears in the 21st century, it sounds like Peter is concerned about Jesus’ welfare; but for a Jewish disciple in those days to rebuke his rabbi was unheard of. What’s worse, Peter is echoing what Satan said in the wilderness. Satan said (essentially), “hey Jesus, there’s another way. You don’t have to suffer the Cross. Do things another way and all the kingdoms of the earth can be yours.” It’s probably the most attractive lie that has ever been spoken.
After confronting Peter, Jesus does forgive him; a week later Peter will be on the mountain of Transfiguration with Jesus.
As for us – as we follow Jesus, we become desert people too. We are fortunate to have a lot more of God’s words with us than Abraham did. In fact Abraham didn’t have any of God’s words written down – it was all verbal. But we still have a God who makes covenant promises and keeps them. As we keep our part of the covenant, we trust God, we worship, and we reach out to others in God’s name. But most of all, we receive God’s love and we love God in return.
Entering into God’s kingdom is not something we can do for ourselves. We enter in because God invites us, and because God has opened the door for us through the Cross.
When we believe as Abraham believed, we can’t help but worship. Worship is always the response to faith and to God’s word. Think of the Asbury Revival last year. People started worshipping God one day, and they got caught up in the majesty of God and the presence of God and the glory of God, and they didn’t want to go home. They wanted to stay – for 16 days! That’s just a tiny, tiny taste of what life in God’s kingdom will be like.
And just like with Abraham, when we say “yes” to God, God’s response will be, “walk before me in faith. I will make you fruitful, I will establish my covenant between me and you (and of course for us today, through Jesus)”.
Bottom line, God’s call on our lives never leaves us where we started. Like Lawrence of Arabia, God gives us new robes – the robes of righteousness – and as we put on those robes, we leave behind the old life and the old self. We step into a new world. We step into God’s kingdom. Like Abraham, we will walk from this time forward in God’s way: by grace through faith.
And, just as important, as we follow Jesus and become desert people, we identify with, and become brothers and sisters with, other desert people. And very frequently these people are the disenfranchised. The persecuted. The homeless and the hungry. All the people in the world who can identify with David when he says, “I groan, I cry, I find no rest, I am scorned by others, and despised…”. These words describe Jesus on the cross, and they also describe people in our own time.
We are called to spend what we have and who we are, for the sake of Jesus and for the Gospel. In the (paraphrased) words of St. Francis – you may know the song:
“Let me not seek so much to be consoled as to console, /
to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, /
for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned/
and it is in dying that we are raised to eternal life.”[2]
One theologian calls this “deep physics” – because in seeking to save one’s own life, one loses it; but in giving up one’s life for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel, one finds it.
It’s desert living. With Jesus, the desert blooms.
With Jesus, in the desert, we find love and life in the most unexpected places. With Jesus, in the desert, we find freedom… and strangely enough, as we give ourselves up to Jesus, we find ourselves. We are called to be a desert people, as we grow in delight at all that God has done and will do. AMEN.
[1] SALT
[2] Sebatian Temple, Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace, a musical setting of the Prayer of St. Francis (trad)
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