“Wilderness, Wild Animals, Satan, and Angels”
Mark 1:12, 13
3/1/09
When I read these verses this week I couldn’t
help but think about the scene in the movie “The Wizard of
Oz,” where Dorothy and her friends enter the jungle chanting,
“Lions, and tigers, and bears! Oh, my!” Here in
this morning’s Gospel text we have wilderness, wild animals, and
Satan! To have to face any one of these entities by themselves
would be bad enough, but to have to face all three
simultaneously... Oh, my!
And yet, that’s exactly where we are as
Christians. We are in the wilderness of this present evil age, as
we make our way to the promised land of our eternal inheritance in the
new age, while having to fight against the wild animals of the world
together with the devil and his temptations along the way. Yet we
don’t do this alone but we have the help of the Lord’s
ministering angels as we travel on this journey. We might wonder
sometimes why the Lord puts us through such testing. Having been
saved through the waters of our Baptism, where the Lord changed us from
being wild animals ourselves to being His beloved children, why
can’t we just skip this whole intermediate period and go right to
heaven?
But this is not something that is foreign to the
people of God. In the O.T. the same thing happened to the people
of Israel. After the Lord had saved them through the waters of
the Red Sea from their slavery under the Egyptians, He immediately led
them out into the wilderness, where they were with the wild animals and
tempted by the devil for forty years. God could have led them
directly into the promised land. There was a short cut, after
all, that would have taken only a matter of months for them to
travel. But Moses writes that God did not lead them this way,
even though it was near, because God said, “Lest the people
change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.”
Another reason that the Lord did not immediately bring them into the
promised land was because He wanted to bring them first to His mountain
- Mt. Sinai, where He would deliver His testament and His laws to
them. The 40 years of wandering in the wilderness following that
event then became a testing period for them, to see if they would
listen to His Word, trust in His promises, and obey His laws.
However, as the Scripture tells us, they failed miserably. The
people grumbled many times against Moses and against God, accusing Him
of leading them out into the desert in order to kill them. And
many of them did fall in the wilderness, but it was because of their
unbelief, so that none of that generation that God had brought out of
Egypt (from 20 years of age and older) was allowed to enter into the
land He had promised to give them. Yet God faithfully fed them
with bread from heaven, water from a rock, and quail. He did not
abandon them, but went with them wherever they went, even making it so
that their shoes and clothing didn’t wear out.
Now, as the Scriptures state, these things were
written for our instruction, who are the Lord’s new Israel today
through faith in Jesus Christ. Having delivered us from our
slavery to sin, death, and the devil through the waters of our Baptism
where our Lord’s blood was sprinkled upon us, He has now driven
us out into our own wilderness, where we are with the wild animals and
are being tempted by the devil on a daily basis. The wilderness
represents the time period in which we live between our Baptism and the
day we enter into the new creation when our Lord returns for us.
The Scripture describes this period of time as an evil age.
It’s a time in which the wild animals of the world (that is, the
unbelievers and those who persecute and hate Christ and His Church) try
to rip us apart as they work together with the devil, who prowls around
like a roaring lion himself, seeking whom he may devour.
It’s a time when we are tempted by these enemies to disbelieve
God and disobey His commandments. Like the Israelites who fell
away in unbelief and so weren’t allowed to enter into the
promised land, the devil and the world would like to get us to fall in
the same way, so that we disqualify ourselves from inheriting the
promised land of heaven.
That this might not happen to us, the Lord sends us
His ministering angels - both heavenly angels, who are sent to serve
those who are to inherit salvation, as well as earthly angels, who are
the called and ordained servants of God’s Word and
Sacraments. Israel, too, had the Angel of the LORD with them,
providing for them, and leading them through the desert onto their
final destination. They also had the ministers of God’s
Word - Moses, Aaron and his sons, who encouraged and taught them from
the Word of God and who offered the sacrifices for the forgiveness of
their sins. And yet they stilled sinned against the Lord.
They rebelled against Him even though they had the help of these angels.
And the bad news is that we do the same things as
they did. We fall all the time to the temptations of the devil
and become food for the wild animals. We close our ears to the
Lord’s ministering angels who bring us His Word, and we follow
after our own lusts. Just like the Israelites grumbled at the
manna that they were given to eat from heaven, we are often not
satisfied with the true Bread from heaven that our Lord gives us and
instead go after food that looks more appealing. We put the Lord
to the test, doubting and disbelieving His Word, murmuring against Him
in our hearts rather than trusting in Him. As a result, we
don’t keep His commandments. Instead of living like the
children He created us to be in Christ, we often revert back to the
wild animals we were before, who not only turn against the Lord but
also against His people, our own brothers and sisters in Christ, as we
bite and devour one another. And so we disqualify ourselves from
entering into the promised land of heaven all the time. We
deserve instead to die in this wilderness and then be cast into the
eternal wilderness of hell, where God and the ministering angels of His
Word are not.
For this reason we must look at our Lord’s
temptation in the wilderness not merely as our example (something we
should imitate), but as something that the Lord did for us. We
might wonder what Jesus was doing. Why was He there? Why
did He allow Himself to be stalked by the wild animals and tempted by
the devil? Why did He need to be ministered to by angels?
He’s God in the flesh and has not only created all these things,
but is Lord over them all. He was not there for Himself, however;
He was there for you. Jesus was in the wilderness among the wild
animals, being tempted by Satan because that’s where you
are. And because you’ve fallen to the temptations of the
devil and become food for the wild animals, Jesus came to do for you
what you could not - overcome the devil’s temptations and shut
the mouths of the wild beasts, so that His victory over them might be
yours. He listened to the ministering angels in His wilderness
experience, perfectly trusting His Father’s Word and keeping His
commandments. Then, through His sacrifice on the cross He took
away your sin of unbelief and disobedience. And all this
righteousness of His He has given you in your Baptism, so that
it’s as if you yourself had overcome the devil, the wild beasts,
and the wilderness.
And now nothing can keep you from the Lord’s
presence in His glorious kingdom, which is your inheritance in
Jesus. Even though you continue to fall as you make your way
through this wilderness to your homeland, your Lord Jesus continues to
lift you up. The wilderness, the wild animals, and Satan are all
defeated foes. You don’t have to be afraid of them
anymore. Like the lions to which the prophet Daniel was thrown
for worshipping the one true God, their mouths have been shut.
They cannot harm you, provided you don’t close your ears to the
Lord’s ministering angels. These He uses to forgive you
your sins, to strengthen you with His food, and to teach you His Word,
so that you might not revert to the wild beasts you were before your
Baptism, but remain the sheep He’s made you to be, who hear your
Good Shepherd’s voice and follow Him. He will faithfully
lead you through this wilderness to the place He’s gone to
prepare for you - to the green pastures and still waters of
paradise. There He will dwell with you face to face forever, and
you’ll never have to face wilderness, wild animals, or demons
ever again. Amen.