Over the last several years I’ve found myself, more often than not, rethinking and working to unlearn much of what I’ve been told and come to believe and understand about God and what it means to be in relationship with the Divine. I’ve encouraged you to do the same. It’s part of my teaching and preaching almost every week. 

For example, just a few days ago on Ash Wednesday I offered you the refrain, “No dust, no life.” I don’t know if it worked but I was trying to give some balance to a day that is often seen as only penitential. I was trying to enlarge and deepen what it means to remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. I was trying to emphasize that it’s not only a day about mortality and endings but also a day about life and beginnings. 

I want to do the same thing with today’s gospel (Mark 1:9-15) and our understanding of temptation. I think it also needs some balancing, enlarging, and deepening. So let me offer you another refrain, No temptation, no salvation.

What do you think of that? How might it change the way you see and experience temptation in your life?

That’s not how we usually think about temptation. For most of us, I suspect, temptation is a negative and something to be avoided. But what if it’s not? What if temptation is necessary for salvation? No temptation, no salvation. 

I wouldn’t be surprised if right about now some of you are saying to yourself, Mike, you’ve done a little too much rethinking and unlearning. Well, you wouldn’t be the first to say that but neither am I the first to say what I did about temptation. St. Anthony said it before me. 

St. Anthony was a monk who lived in the desert wilderness of Egypt from the late third century to the mid-fourth century. He said, “Without temptations no one can be saved.” (Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Anthony, 5.) No temptation, no salvation. 

Before St. Anthony said it God revealed it. It’s what we see in today’s gospel. 

Jesus “was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. … And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan.” (Mark 1:9-10, 12)

Now that’s not two different spirits. The Spirit of God that descends on Jesus at his baptism is the same Spirit of God that immediately drives him out into the wilderness to be tempted. 

If that’s the pattern for Jesus why wouldn’t it also be the pattern for us who follow him? 

And let’s not forget that it was that same Spirit of God that led the Israelites on a forty year road trip through wilderness and temptation to the promised land. No temptation, no salvation.

And when I say salvation I’m not talking about going to heaven or getting some future reward from God. I’m talking about living wholeheartedly with meaning and purpose. I’m talking about the healing that lets us be comfortable in our skin. I’m talking about discovering our truest self and living with authenticity and integrity. I’m talking about knowing and experiencing ourselves to be connected to something larger than and beyond ourselves.

And that makes me wonder:

• What if the wilderness is a classroom and temptation is our teacher? 
• What if temptation is necessary for our self-knowledge and growing into wholeness?
• What if temptation helps us discover what we most value and care about?
• What if temptation is a way of discerning the direction we want to go in our life?
• What if temptation is about clarifying and deepening our life? 
• What if temptation asks us to wrestle with who and how we want to be?

I think that’s what was going on for Jesus during those forty days in the wilderness. He wasn’t trying to be a good boy or prove himself to God. He wasn’t trying to gain God’s approval or love. And he wasn’t taking an entrance exam to get into heaven or to gain a seat at God’s table. And neither are we.

Those things are givens. They were declared by God before Jesus went to the wilderness and before he faced temptation. God already knows Jesus to be God’s beloved child with whom God is well pleased. The only question is whether Jesus knows that and what it means for his life. And that’s a question for us as well. It’s the question and gift behind every temptation. 

I think Jesus was learning about himself and wrestling with what it means to be a beloved child of God. He was listening for what was being asked of him. He was struggling to become more fully himself. He was discovering what mattered most to him. He was clarifying his values, the direction of his life, and who and how he wanted to be. He was working out his own salvation through his temptations. 

What if that’s how we spent the next forty days? What would that mean for us? It might change our experience of and questions about Lent. Rather than asking what we are leaving behind we’d ask ourselves where we are heading? Instead of focusing on what we’ve done we’d focus on who we want to become. We would give priority to our yeses rather than our nos. 

Who do you want to be? How do you want to live your life? Those are the questions at the heart of every temptation. They are questions looking for a yes. Yes, that’s who I want to be. Yes, that’s how I want to live. Yes, that has authenticity and integrity for me. Yes, I can wholeheartedly give myself to that. 

For most of my life, however, temptation has been associated with saying no. Maybe that’s true for you as well. No, I won’t do that. No, I won’t say that. No, I won’t think that. 

No doubt, there are things to which we need to say no. But maybe Lent and temptations are really about discovering within ourselves and in the world what is worthy of our yes. I think that’s what we see happening for Jesus today in Mark’s account of the gospel. 

I don’t know what temptations Jesus said no to in today’s gospel. Mark doesn’t tell us. He only tells us what Jesus’ says yes to. 

Jesus emerges from the wilderness of temptation saying yes to the present time, yes to the kingdom, yes to a change of life, yes to a commitment, and yes to his presence and work in all that. Mark’s emphasis is on the yes, not the no. If there is a no to be said it is in service to the yes. 

Mark doesn’t describe what tempted Jesus. He leaves that to us. And it’s not hard to imagine because we also have experienced temptations in the wilderness: fear, disappointment, anger, grief, loneliness, longing, desire, despair, self-doubt. We don’t often think of those as temptations but they tempt us just as much do the big, hot, juicy things we usually consider to be temptations. 

What are you wrestling with today in the wilderness of your life? What’s the temptation? And what’s the yes that temptation is offering you? No temptation, no salvation. 

I don’t want us to go through Lent or life saying only no. I want us to find our yes. No is static. It keeps us stuck. It doesn’t take us anywhere or change anything. It’s like sitting in a nice restaurant, looking at the menu, and saying no to each item. We will leave there just as empty and hungry as we came. What’s the yes that fills and nourishes, feeds and grows life? 

What’s the yes that will guide you through Lent this year? What’s the yes that will change your life and affirm who and how you want to be? What’s the yes you want to realize within yourself and offer the world? 

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Image Credit:
Image #1 – Temptation of Christ by Ilya Repin – Bukowskis, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Image #2 – Baptism of Jesus by Dosseman – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.