Lent #3: If God Loves Me So Much, What am I doing HERE?




Imagine for a moment, that you are in this photo...without benefit of a car, or a cell phone...no tent...no granola bars and bottled water. Just you. And the vast expanse of dry wilderness.




It would be terrifying, at least for me. I often joke that my idea of camping is a Holiday Inn. My preference for lodging runs along the lines of Marriott and Hilton.




I picked up a book this week that was written by Eugene Peterson. If you read much in the world of Christian or Evangelical theology, Peterson is fairly well known. He is the author of the popular contemporary translation of the Bible, known as The Message. The title of the book I'm reading is Eat This Book, A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading.




In Peterson's book, he talks about the difference between reading the Bible for the sake of gaining information, and reading the Bible in order to be formed as followers of Christ. There is a big difference between these two, and I think it's a topic worthy of our consideration, especially during Lent.




To make the idea of formation more tangible, think about making cookies or bread. The dough must be formed. This suggests pressure and prodding from the outside...and it also suggests that the dough must subject itself to the formation process.




Being formed is easy enough for cookie dough! It's an inanimate object. But for humans? Not so much.




We humans do not subject ourselves to formation very easily, or for most of us, with any pattern of regularity. This brings us back to Jesus, and the story of his baptism in the Gospel of Mark.




Today's Gospel reading is taken from the first chapter of Mark. In the passage, Mark tells how Jesus came to John the Baptist in order to be baptized. In a moment that is reminiscent of the Transfiguration account in Matthew 17, the text tells us that God spoke audibly at Jesus' baptism: "This is my beloved Son. In him I am well pleased."




And then immediately....Jesus was thrust into the wilderness...immediately. Not after a post-baptismal family gathering at Macaroni Grill. Not after going home to gather his cell phone and other belongings...but immediately after God recognized Jesus as his own, and gave him the ultimate blessing of love and acceptance, he sent him straight into the desert. Again, much as we saw in the Transfiguration, the spiritual high is immediately followed by a low...blessing and joy, followed right away by an experience of trial and isolation.

So, if God loved Jesus so much...if he loves us so much, why do we keep ending up in the desert with no tent and no cell phone?

Could spiritual formation be part of the answer?

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