SPIRITS IN PRISON
Mark 1: 9-12; 1 Peter 3:18-22
At once, the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by Satan.
Let’s get right to it: Christ requires, not simply desires, disciples who are willing to confront, not simply face, the wilderness.
The wilderness can make or break a Christian for any number of reasons—Mark mentions a few trappings in verse 12: he was in the wilderness 40 DAYS; he was being tempted by SATAN; and he was with the WILD BEASTS and ANGELS attended him.
FORTY DAYS in bible language means an extraordinary long time. What can we take from a very long time outside of our safety or comfort zones? Perseverance? Trust? Patience? The art of Solitude? Yes, these, but something more.
TEMPTED BY SATAN: Why was Jesus DRIVEN, even THROWN, into the Wilderness just after that beautiful moment at the Jordan? To teach us how to respond, with scripture, when tempted? To encourage us to not fear the wilderness journey of discipleship? To face our own temptations and wild beasts? Yes, these, but also something more.
WILD BEASTS in Jesus’ day constituted boars, jackals, wolves, foxes, leopards and hyenas. Angels are the messengers of God. What a juxtaposition of forces—wild beasts and angels—all around Jesus. One group could tear him apart and the other could put him back together again. How should we understand the presence of each?
To remind us of the hostile nature of the wilderness? To accentuate Jesus’ vulnerability as a human? To impress upon us his ability to deal with both the beast and the angel? Yes, these, and also something more.
What is the something more we are to learn today? Let’s look at 1 Peter 3:18. "Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God."
Every move he made, every word he spoke, every prayer he prayed, Jesus did all of it in accordance with his mission to bring each person back into relationship with God.
There are no forgotten children of God: no one too sick, too bad, too dirty, too haughty, too ignorant, too intelligent, too beast-like, to be reached, to be healed, to be made whole, to be suffered for, to die for, to rise for. Yes, Jesus did all of these for us, and even more.
"He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. [And] In that state, he went and made proclamation to the spirits in prison…"
The wilderness season of Lent is an appropriate time to examine how our spirits are imprisoned.
We live as free individuals. We make our own choices and decisions about everything, yet when it comes to our faith, many of us own imprisoned spirits.
We settle for something less than angels but more than wild beasts. We are willing to endure ten days, but not a full forty. We stop short of the full commitment; we stop short of the cross, and that is why our spirits remain in prison.
Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I am saying to each of us that the unexamined faith is hardly worth having.
When Socrates spoke of the unexamined life, he was on trial for heresy. He was encouraging his students to challenge the accepted beliefs of the time and think for themselves.
The sentence was death but Socrates had the option of suggesting an alternative punishment. He could have chosen life in prison or exile, and would likely have avoided death.But Socrates believed that these alternatives would rob him of the only thing that made life useful: Examining the world around him and discussing how to make the world a better place. Without his "examined life" there was no point in living.
So he suggested that Athens reward him for his service to society. The result, of course, is that they had no alternative and were forced to vote for a punishment of death. "The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living" by Karl W. Palachuk
Our challenge as we begin this Lenten journey is to free our spirits—not for our own gain, of course, but for God’s glory.
The something more that we can receive through our walk with Jesus Christ is a strength like no other—the strength of the Spirit to not only throw us into the wildernesses of our lives but also to bring us out victorious. Let’s get right to it:
Jesus defeated Satan.
He faced the wild beasts.
He endured the entire journey
He emerged to fulfill his mission.
He was obedient unto God, even to the point of death.
He sits at the right hand of God—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.
When Christians in obedience to Christ gather in churches as one body, they have the strength of wild beasts and angels; they have the fortitude to not merely to persevere but to PREVAIL.
Know this, the Church, any church, our church, cannot prevail without the loving commitment to go to the cross with Christ. On the other side of the cross is resurrection, reconciliation, redemption…and an invitation to the greatest banquet our hearts will ever feed upon.
At Christ’s table, the gates of heaven open wide: the imprisoned spirits are set free…free, for what? To pledge with a clear conscience our faith in God who will find us in any wilderness, from the deep woods of Oregon in THE SHACK to the shores of coastal Maine.
The Lord knows where we are. Shall we keep our spirits in prison, or shall we go out to meet him and receive something so much more? Amen.
March 1, 2009
First Parish Federated Church, S Berwick, ME
The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor
