Homeless
Where is the wilderness today?
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. - Mark 1:12-13
When we hear that John lived in the wilderness and Jesus was sent into the wilderness after his baptism, what kind of image do we get?
Do we envision a camping trip with a fire and sleeping bag, or do we have a different picture?
The image I get is homelessness, and that image is especially poignant today as I look out on freshly fallen snow.
Where are all the people I know who are living in the wilderness?
Where do they go when the weather turns against them?
Im Mark's Gospel, we don't get a great amount of detail about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The entire forty days is summed up in a few words.
I guess he just wants us to know the angels attended to him, so he was safe from the wild beasts.
So, is that the message for all the homeless among us? Should we be comforted by the fact that the angels will be with them? Do we leave the work of keeping them safe and warm to God?
Throughout Jesus' entire ministry, he depended on the generosity of others for a place to sleep. He had no home of his own.
We don't think of him as homeless though, do we? And maybe because we don't see him as struggling to find a place to stay or where to get a meal, we tend not to think about those who have no home as needing help.
But they are not all on a mission. They are not all homeless by choice.
Some are afraid and some are at the end of their rope.
The journey into the wilderness for Jesus was not a retreat to help him get his act together or to find meaning in his life. Those were not the goals.
So, when we think of him our there alone with only God's help to comfort him, perhaps we should think of all God's children who are lost in the wilderness, alone and frightened.
Then, maybe we can think of ways to go out and find them and bring them home.
More to come...