March "Deserts to Daffodils"

Mark ch 1 v 12  A journey through Lent - Fr Ken Letts

At once the Spirit sent him out into the desert, ^and he was in the desert forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Mark’s record of the temptation of Christ by Satan in the desert is brief:  three short sentences compared with the lengthy and more detailed accounts in Matthew and Luke.  It follows his baptism when he was acknowledged as ‘God’s beloved Son with whom I am well pleased’, the sign for Jesus to begin his public ministry.

Father Ken pointed out that Jesus’ ministry both began and ended in a desert.  In this first desert time he was tempted by Satan – a named and identifiable entity.  ‘Satans’ were the Persian officials whose task it was to visit the outposts of the empire 400 years previously and check up on the local officials, to ensure that they were doing their jobs properly and in accordance with the law and dictates of the Persian emperor.  So when Mark writes that Jesus was tempted by Satan, he was saying that Jesus was being ‘checked up on’ as to whether he was doing his work properly and in the manner ordained and desired by God.

Jesus’ final desert was Golgotha, a barren area outside Jerusalem when he was crucified and again tempted, this time by onlookers who challenged him, ‘If you are the Christ why don’t you save yourself?’ Jesus was again being tempted to see if he would continue to live (and die) as God asked him to do and again not use his divinity to save himself.

Jesus was tempted to disobey God by being a different person to the one God had made him and using methods that were contrary to God’s ways.  The challenge for us in our lives and when we are in a metaphorical or spiritual desert place and tempted is to continue to choose God’s ways and live in a manner that pleases Him.  The promise is that when we choose God and do not give into the temptation to be or do other than what God desires for us is that we will continue to be transformed into the person God made us to be, just as Christ was. 

Gillian Dyer