Devotional 3-1-09

Peaks and Valleys

10And just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” 12And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. 13He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

Last week, on Transfiguration Sunday, we were reminded that we are not to stay on the mountaintop forever to soak in a dazzling, wonderful worship experience. There’s ministry waiting for us in the valleys.

In our Gospel passage for today, the first Sunday of Lent, we receive a similar reminder. Mark tells us the story of Jesus’ baptism, during which a voice from heaven speaks the familiar words that will later be echoed on the Mount of Transfiguration: “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

What a moment. Can you imagine? Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, the heavens were torn apart and the Spirit descended upon him like a dove, as those magnificent words were spoken from on high. What would you imagine would be the human response to that kind of recognition?

“Ha! I’m King of the World! Look at me!”

No time for self-absorption or reveling in the moment. Mark tells us that immediately, the Spirit—the same Spirit—drove him into the wilderness for forty days to be tempted by Satan.
This admission may come as a shock to some of you who know of my ego, but the Spirit has never descended on me like a dove—or any other kind of bird for that matter. Nor have I been driven into the desert to be tempted by Satan for forty days, a record I hope to keep intact! But I have experienced spiritual highs and lows.

I am aware of the temptation to drink in the good times and revel in spiritual highs. And I know the emptiness of spiritually low points and the temptation to ask where God went. I find that I get lost in self-absorption during both the peaks and valleys of my spiritual life. In looking back, though, I can see how good times and bad have prepared me and strengthened me to discern God’s will for me.

We spend these forty days of Lent as a time in the wilderness. We give up things and take things on as a Lenten Discipline. In this period of darkness, we know of the bright promise of spring and resurrection, a promise captured so beautifully and poetically in Natalie Sleeth’s Hymn of Promise:

In the bulb there is a flower; in the seed, an apple tree;
In cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free!
In the cold and snow of winter there’s a spring that waits to be,
Unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see.

Jeff Taylor