THE SHEPARD OF ALL WHO WANDER

Gordon E. Ellis
March 5, 2006

THE SHEPHERD OF ALL WHO WANDER

You know: sometimes LESS is MORE! And of ALL the gospels, MARK is the one that gives us the LEAST. Reading Mark is like drinking orange juice CONCENTRATE straight from the CAN. The narrative is SO condensed and SO compact, that a little BIT of it carries us a LONG way. Within the first 15 verses of the FIRST chapter, Mark announces that Jesus is the Son of God; tells us that HIS story will be GOOD news; establishes the relationship between Jesus and John the Baptist through a quotation from Isaiah; and THEN describes the MINISTRY of John the Baptist, the BAPTISM of Jesus, the TEMPTING of Jesus in the wilderness, the ARREST of John the Baptist, the BEGINNING of Jesus’ public ministry, and the primary THEME of Jesus’ PREACHING. And ALL of this is DONE in just 309 WORDS.

Well, it’s TRADITION that, on the FIRST Sunday of LENT, we read about the TEMPTING of Jesus in the wilderness. 3 of the 4 gospels CONTAIN this story, but MATTHEW and LUKE give the story MUCH more SCOPE and drama than MARK does. They add DETAILS describing 3 temptations and a CONVERSATION between JESUS and His TEMPTER, sometimes called SATAN. And these 3 TEMPTATIONS relate to HOW Jesus will conduct His MINISTRY. Will He draw CROWDS by offering BREAD to starving MASSES? Will He DAZZLE people into following Him by performing amazing SIGNS and wonders? Will He seize the SWORD and become their yearned-for POLITICAL Messiah, the triumphant KING of Israel? And friends, THESE are not just PRACTICAL concerns for JESUS. They are significant SPIRITUAL issues as well. But MARK’S gospel OMITS all these details.

However, we DON’T want to overlook what Mark DOES offer us. It tells us that a time of TESTING follows Jesus’ BAPTISM. And this is NOT a RETREAT. Jesus is DRIVEN out into the wilderness by the SPIRIT, the SAME Spirit that He has just RECEIVED during His BAPTISM. Now, the GREEK word for driven OUT is the SAME word that is USED to describe how JESUS drives out DEMONS from those who are POSSESSED. SO, the Spirit DRIVES Jesus OUT into the wilderness, and THERE, He is TEMPTED by Satan. And the WORD, Satan, in Greek, simply means, ACCUSER.^[1] Satan is something like a prosecuting attorney, who ACCUSES persons before God. Everything ELSE that we think of when we think of SATAN – the red cape, the pitchfork, and EVEN the fires of HELL – ALL come HUNDREDS of years LATER and do NOT apply to the BIBLE. And this ACCUSER is ALL too FAMILIAR to EACH and every ONE of us, AS are his arguments. You see: WITHIN us, we ALL have an ACCUSER, who says things like: Come on! What difference will it make? Everybody ELSE is doing it, and it doesn’t bother THEM. You’re a GOOD person at heart, and you just want the BEST. What does it MATTER if you CHEAT a little bit, or cut corners? You DESERVE it. OTHER people do a lot WORSE things without even thinking TWICE. And ON and ON, our internal Accuser TALKS to us!

We’re told that the TIME of temptation for Jesus was 40 days, which is biblical SHORTHAND for a LONG time. And Mark tells us that Jesus was with wild beasts, and ministered to by angels. Now MAYBE that’s just MARK’S way of describing the PERILS of the wilderness and God’s PROTECTION there. But I don’t think so. There IS an ALTERNATIVE interpretation. ONE scholar cites the ancient JEWISH text, the Testament of Naphtali, which recounts THIS promise to the RIGHTEOUS One, the MESSIAH: And the devil shall FLEE from you, and the wild beasts shall FEAR you, and the angels shall CLEAVE to you.^[2] And of course, the devil, the wild beasts, and the angels are ALL the details that MARK chooses to INCLUDE in his gospel. WHY? Well, I think this is MARK’S way of telling his readers that Jesus IS the righteous one! Jesus IS the MESSIAH! Jesus IS God’s ANOINTED one!

SO, as you can SEE, Mark says a LOT about Jesus is just a FEW verses. BUT, by SAYING just a few words, Mark ALSO leaves US to fill in our OWN details. WHAT really HAPPENED to Jesus in the wilderness? Well, in ONE sense, we don’t know. MARK doesn’t TELL us what Jesus’ temptations were. But MAYBE we know more than we think. After all, to SAY that Jesus knew times of trial and temptation is to say that HE knew an experience that is COMMON to ALL of us. And to acknowledge that HE had inner turmoil and conflict affirms that HE was no stranger to the wild BEASTS and gentle ANGELS that live within EACH of us. And JESUS’ time of trial and testing invites US to examine our OWN times of trial and testing. AND it AFFIRMS that, AT such times, God is not DISTANT from us, but intimately present WITH us, JUST as with JESUS. You SEE: Mark’s SILENCE invites us, and perhaps REQUIRES us, to fill in the BLANKS from our OWN experience.

Now, I’VE never spent 40 days in the WILDERNESS, but I’ll tell you: I am no STRANGER to TEMPTATION! I struggle with temptation CONSTANTLY! FURTHERMORE, every so often, I look in a MIRROR and see someone I DON’T really KNOW. And I wonder WHY it IS that, of ALL the lives I COULD be living, I have chosen or fallen, stumbled or lied, or lucked my way into THIS life that I’m living. What IF I had done something ELSE? What IF I had never MET some of the KEY people in my life? What IF I had taken that OTHER road in the yellow wood? Is there something about ME that would be recognizably ME without all the things that currently COMPETE to tell me WHO I am, like my marriage, my children, my job, my nationality, my education, my social standing, and my various likes and dislikes? AND, IS this life that I’m LIVING what I really WANT? What IS it that truly brings ME fulfillment? What KIND of person do I really want to BE? WHAT are my core VALUES? And when everything else is taken away from me, as one day it WILL be, WHAT will remain?

Now, maybe all this sounds like the incoherent RAMBLINGS of a man enduring a mid-life crisis, but I have to TELL you that these QUESTIONS have ALWAYS been part of MY life. And I believe that we ALL ask them. Oh, we make PEACE with them from time to time, but they keep RESURFACING in times of struggle and crisis; such as when a life-threatening illness comes to us or to someone we love; or when a LOVED one dies; or when our children come, or go, or return, or leave again, or return again (our boomerang kids); OR when we RETIRE.

So you see: times of TRIAL and temptation are an INTEGRAL part of LIFE. And the fact that the gospels go OUT of their way to tell us that JESUS experienced times of TRIAL and TESTING, WILDERNESS times, HELPS us to appreciate that such times are NORMAL. JESUS went OUT into that WILDERNESS, NOT so that WE might NEVER have to GO there, but SO that WE might GO there without FEAR of getting LOST. You see: His MESSAGE is that God does NOT abandon us, EVEN in the WILDERNESS. In fact, throughout the history of God’s PEOPLE, the WILDERNESS is where God has been MOST present to them. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel were all WILDERNESS people, DESERT nomads, who had to DEPEND upon God EVERY single day for their very EXISTENCE! And WHEN the children of Israel were FREED from their SLAVERY in Egypt, it was during their WANDERING through the WILDERNESS that they knew GOD as a living PRESENCE, EVIDENT in a pillar of CLOUD by day and a pillar of FIRE by night. LIKEWISE, John the Baptist BAPTIZED in the WILDERNESS, calling people OUT of their COMFORT zones, OUT of the comfortable patterns of CITY life, in order to find GOD in that barren wilderness LANDSCAPE. And HERE God is with JESUS! SO, it’s very CLEAR in the Bible that GOD does not ABANDON us in our times of TRIAL and testing, that GOD does not leave us ALONE in the WILDERNESS places of our lives. INSTEAD, God is The SHEPHERD of all who WANDER, just as it SAYS in PSALM 23. And what GOOD news that IS! SO, as I said, we DON’T want to MISS what Mark DOES offer us in these FEW short VERSES that BEGIN his gospel. It’s a WONDERFUL picture of GOD as The SHEPHERD of ALL who WANDER, which of course, is ALL of us. And how GOOD it feels to HAVE such a God!

I’d like to END my sermon with a SONG. I’ve been WANTING to introduce you to Jim Cole, who will be playing a CONCERT here on March 26^th, because I think you’ll LOVE his music. Well, Jim has a SONG about this GOD who remains WITH us, EVEN in the WILDERNESS places of our lives, this God who NEVER abandons us, even though WE often separate OURSELVES from God. The song is called, The Shepherd of All Who Wander. The WORDS are in your bulletin. LISTEN to it!

SONG: The Shepherd of All Who Wander by Jim Cole

^[1]The history of the name Satan is long & complex, but in its essence, it refers to one who accuses the faithful before God. In THIS context, the line is blurred between accusation & temptation. Many of us have experienced an inner voice of accusation that carries with it bad counsel about what we should do. See article by Victor Hamilton in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume V. New York: Doubleday, 1992, pp. 985 ff.

^[2]See Schweizer, Eduard. The Good News According to Mark. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1970, p.42.