In those days Jesus came from
Nazareth of Galilee
and 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 a voice came from
heaven,
“You are my Son, the
Beloved;
with you I am well
pleased.”
And the Spirit immediately
drove him out into the wilderness.
He was in the wilderness
forty days,
tempted by Satan;
and he was with the wild
beasts;
and the angels waited on
him.
Now after John was
arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee,
proclaiming the good news of
God, and saying,
“The time is fulfilled,
and the kingdom of God
has come near;
repent, and believe in the
good news.”
***
I have always imagined heaven
a wilderness. I imagine it to feel like lying on my back in the itchy grass, of
the empty lot, beside the house of my Texas childhood, a region they call big
sky country, when it is rather short tree country, and as much as Texans would
like to have it, not its own country at all, but perhaps God’s country, as all
those places are, where you can lie down and watch the whips of clouds ebb
slowly, morphing from one side of sky to the other, be it an empty lot, or a
lake, or a part in the alpine canopy.
It was there in that unfilled
space that I filled much of my early childhood - plucking blades of grass, some
green and wet like plastic, on which I later learned to whistle, and others
rolled and dry as sandpaper, reminiscent of our ever present drought. From under
the twisted live oak, I would feel the acorn’s bullet smooth shape, and the
crumble of their tan top berets, the whole of which my parents once paid us a
penny for each collected, which was probably more a penny for their time, as
the hundreds of acorns would have been worth a dollar for our hours of
entertainment.
Toward the neighbor’s side of
the lot, just before the grass became more rulley, was a dirt circle of an ant
colony, at the edge of which I would perch, with long narrow stick, one end
touching the ground, and for eternity I would watch as their black and red
bodies stepped up the thin wooden line toward my hand, until I would take the
ground side of the stick and reverse it, watching them climb a never-ending
stick staircase, I would wonder if there was giant God at the other end of the
lot, watching me, in a never ending circle that only seemed to be going
forward.
Sometimes, my mother would
take us down to the drainage ditch behind the house at the edge of the
neighborhood, and for a city kid, this was wilderness. We would catch tadpoles
in spring, and bring them inside, feeding them boiled lettuce and watching them
grow little legs beside their long tail, the amphibian’s awkward middle school
stage like giant feet on still immature bodies. When they became tiny frogs,
the size of our thumbs, we would set them out in our mother’s garden to catch
bugs that thwarted her tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, and mint, the tastes of
which are my childhood, the memory of which is my heaven, out there in the
wilderness.
Likewise, I imagine Jesus.
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness, for what seemed like
forty days, he was tempted by Satan. Was he tempted to have the power over
creation, to smash an ant if he so pleased, or chop down the live oak, or take
every last tadpole from the limestone ponds? Was he tempted to eat all the
cheery tomatoes from the vine or did he selectively pick blades of grass on
which to trumpet sound? I suppose a lot depends on if he was able to see heaven
in the wilderness, and I think he was.
I imagine Jesus’ wilderness
time, like a hike to Twin
Lakes on the Elkhorn
Crest Trail, where Jay and Eth and I were talking, and suddenly, there was a
giant mountain goat and two kids. Halting in our step, voices hushed and
hushing one another, movements paused, we watched and waited, until tip-toed
step we came closer with cameras and awe filled eyes, to see the clumps of wind
blown shedding fur and stark white clumsy kids lying down like sheep against
their mother. This is how I imagine Jesus, with the furry wild beasts, and
stark white angels waiting on him, waiting on him that he might see them, look
them in the eye, zoom in the camera, and know each other’s presence, holding
still in the fragile humility of the created order, watching the balance of
heaven before his eyes. I suppose surpassing temptation, depends a lot on if he
was able to see heaven in the wilderness, and I think he was, and I hope we
are.
I have always imagined heaven
a wilderness, a place where the earth and the cosmos are righted, where there
is equilibrium in our created order, such that there is enough for all, enough
space, enough food, enough water, enough time, enough freedom, a world to
explore and existence itself called good. Enough that there is balance, no wars
over resources, no debates between access and preservation, between the
proximity of wolves and cattle, no debts and debtors, or mountain top removal,
or building over an aquifer’s recharge zone, instead a place where crops are rotated
and the land is allowed to lye fallow, a place where is neither over-population
nor endangered animals or plants, where the oceans of trash are instead wreaths
of coral and we are merely divers opening the front door to look in on a home
of life in another world, a wilderness, a heaven with wild beasts and bugs and
beings all as angels.
Because we’re not there yet,
in the scripture John the Baptist was arrested, and in yesterday’s news 660
million people are loosing over three years of their life due to India’s
polluted air, and in the church we still have a long forty days of Lent before
us, a desert, a wilderness, that could both be heaven or hell, an empty lot to
be filled or a childhood place to wonder and wander. Our surpassing temptation,
depends a lot on if we are able to see heaven in the wilderness, and I hope we
are. That we might be like, Jesus coming to Galilee, proclaiming the good news
of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God
has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”
