A Time To Be Brave Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Matthew 4:1-11

God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you…”

Today’s first reading picks up after God has commissioned Noah and his family to do something extraordinary – we all know the story.  Noah is a righteous man, called by God to build an ark and fill it with two of every creature on earth.  What a ridiculous thing to ask of anyone, and that’s pretty much how Noah’s neighbors saw the project. It took two things in Noah to get him to go ahead as commanded.  First, he needed deep faith in God, and second, he needed courage. He possessed both, and he did as God bade him do. 

Our first reading picks up after the flood, and God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  This is God’s promise to never flood the earth again, and the symbol given to Noah has come to represent courage and bravery for many people.

The rainbow has quite a history. Just last week, Pastor Renee arrived at our church building and was greeted, outside, by – well – nothing.  She told me she stayed in her car in the parking lot for quite a while, and that not until she saw the rainbow tablecloth in the Porter room did she really relax.  The rainbow is a powerful symbol.

In ancient Greek mythology, the rainbow was not the positive sign it is in our society today.  Quite the opposite, it was a negative sign that meant disaster.  Iris, the rainbow, was Juno’s handmaid and messenger.  When Juno decided to flood the earth with watery chaos, it was Iris who brought the bad news.  The rainbow was thus not to be happily anticipated.

Moving into modern times, in 1969 we first heard about The Rainbow Coalition.  This was a Black Power group established by a leader of the Black Panthers.  Next came the National Rainbow Coalition which was a political organization that grew out of Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential campaign.  In 1978 the first rainbow flag was flown – and today it is considered the symbol of the LGBTQ+? community.  The rainbow is a powerful symbol.

So, on our first Sunday in Lent, we begin with a promise from God, written in the sky above us, a sign of power and of unification, a strong sign, a powerful sign that tells us He loves us.

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

Our Gospel reading today comes from Mark – the oldest and least elaborate of our Gospels.  Mark was not a Greek speaker, and since the Gospels were written in Greek, his tends to be clipped and to the point.  He shows Jesus being baptized in the river Jordan, and then being driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.

Our Christian faith is filled with signs and symbols.  In baptism the water symbolizes our being washed clean of sin, and a dove descending is the symbol for the Holy Spirit.  These are powerful symbols for brave people.  Yes – brave people.  In the early Church, only adults could be baptized, because Jesus’ early followers, the early Church, recognized that it took courage to go against mainstream beliefs and accept Jesus as Lord.  It could easily mean one would meet death in the arena.

Today, we think of doves, and thus the baptismal dove, as benign creatures.  We picture the baptismal dove as small and swiftly moving, offering the gentle touch of the life-giving Spirit, often to a tiny infant being held in a minister’s arms. That’s one way, the popular way, to see it, and while it perhaps embodies some of the milder attributes of the Holy Spirit, it is not the dove we encounter in Mark’s Gospel.  It is not the totality of third Person of the Trinity, of our God.

And the Spirit immediately drove Jesus out into the wilderness

In Mark, the gracious little dove is gone, replaced by the driving Spirit, like the wind that Ezekiel heard in his vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, like the rushing wind we shall hear again at Pentecost.  It is the scouring wind of the great Judean desert.  The crowds who watched Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan have gone; there is no water here.  Jesus is on His own, among wind-carved rocks, in the blazing heat of desert days, in the star-filled cold of wild, bitter nights.

The wilderness of Judea was not a place where anyone went voluntarily, and certainly never alone. It was a place of danger and destruction, and if one had to go into the trackless sands, it was in order to get from A to B as fast as possible, with dried food and skins of water, in caravans of company/people. But here is Jesus, alone, with only the wild animals for company, and angels who need neither food nor drink and suffer neither heat nor cold.

Due to his limited knowledge of the Greek language, Mark does not say all this, yet the picture he gives us is rich with allusions.  Jesus is in this inhuman place for forty days, says Mark, and our mind’s eye sees the Exodus people of God in their forty-year journey across other deserts, through other wildernesses.

The messages in our Bible readings this morning, call us into a Lent that wants something beyond our quiet, personal pieties. We like to “do the usual” each Lent – give up chocolate, go on a diet, give up smoking.  Sometimes we add something to our daily or weekly routine – go for a walk every other day, get a gym membership, study the Bible.  But these Lenten commitments are always too easy to let slip.  Lent calls us to something more, something other than just “the usual things”. 

Pastor Renee’s visit last Sunday got me thinking about the people in my life, the ones that I most respect and recall most vividly.  Without exception, like Renee, they were all strong, kind, caring, and brave. If you look up the word brave online it will tell you it means, “ready to face and endure danger or pain; showing courage.”  The people in my life, much like Renee, were compelled by life circumstances to either be brave, or lose everything, perhaps even their lives.  And this is what we see in this morning’s readings, symbols of strength that call us to bravery.

Noah wasn’t forced to build an ark and fill it with his family and two of every creature on earth.  He might just as easily have said, “God – what are You talking about?  It’s a lovely day.  I think I’ll take a pass on this weird notion.”  But he chose to be brave, to do the thing his friends and neighbors found inexplicable and strange.  That rainbow that appeared when it was all over – that was a sign of great courage and bravery brought to fruition.

Jesus was driven into the wilderness by the Spirit, and though He could have refused, He did not.  The sweet little dove, that worldly symbol of peace, harshly drove Him into the desert to bravely risk His life for ours.  And at the end, that cross on which He died for us, has become the greatest and most powerful symbol on earth.

Lent calls us to take on challenges we might normally ignore, to be more loving, more giving, more sensitive to, and aware of, the needs of others.  Lent is not about our little, personal, we rarely keep them anyway, sacrifices of chocolate and cigarettes.  What it is all about, is being brave for God. 

This Lent, try something daring.  Speak kindly to a beggar, ask a disabled person if you can be of assistance, pay for those groceries someone is setting aside because they can’t quite afford them.  Seek the opportunity to be brave, and you will find it.

It is Lent, and Jesus Himself tells us, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good News.”

Let us pray – paraphrasing the anthem:

You shall cross the barren desert - But you shall not die of thirst You shall wander far in safety - Though you do not know the way You shall speak your words to foreign folk - And they will understand You shall see the face of God in others, and live.

Be not afraid - Christ goes before you always Come, follow Him and He will give you rest.

Be brave for God.  And may you have a blessed Lent.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.