Wild Beasts and Angels

Text: Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
Theme: “Wild Beasts and Angels”
First Sunday in Lent
February 26, 2012
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

IN THE NAME OF JESUS

9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted[g] by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”

At our home, while much of the grown-up reading is done with a kindle or an iPad, we have seen an increase in the number of children’s books lying around the house. Our grandson, zeroing in on three years of age, has an all but contagious sense of adventure, and classic children’s literature feeds that impulse.

Many of us, even as adults, have enjoyed the work of Dr. Seuss. My favorite will always be Green Eggs and Ham, although the less familiar Great Day for Up comes in a close second. Some of you think I’m nuts because everybody knows that The Cat in the Hat is at the top of the list in the Seuss corpus. And then, mindful of today’s Gospel for the First Sunday in Lent, we can’t leave out the work of Maurice Sendak from the body of children’s literature. I speak of Where the Wild Things Are. The writing is succinct; it’s easy for the little ones to understand. Ironically, Sendak is reported to have said this: “You cannot write for children. They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them. ”

Then, of course, there are his drawings of those wild things, those monsters, those beasts with fangs. They scared the little boy in the story at first. But then he scared them when he threatened to leave the land where the wild rumpus took place:

“But the wild things cried, “Oh please don’t go - we’ll eat you up - we love you so!”
And Max said, “No!”
The wild things roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws but Max stepped into his private boat and waved goodbye.”

Max, the little boy, had been naughty, and his mother sent him to his room with no supper. Our Lord, however, had not been naughty. Rather, he had been baptized in the Jordan River. And the image of the Holy Spirit descending on Him like a dove is so lovely, so serene, so sensitive, so kindly, so pastoral in its evocation. Nowadays, it’s not so much what words mean; it all has to do with what they evoke. We’re not interested in definitions so much anymore; they tend to bore us. Today, it’s all about how language makes us feel – as if all we are is a bundle of feelings, emotions. “Aww, that’s nice, so nice: the thought of a lovely little dove at this seminal moment in Jesus’s life.

Oh, really? It looks to me as if the Holy Spirit is a little more than a dove in today’s story. It’s the Holy Spirit who may be the wild thing, the wild beast in the Gospel narrative. After the Baptism, it politely says that the Holy Spirit “sent him out into the wilderness.” The “sent him” bit is not an accurate translation at all. The word actually means to push, or to shove, or to cast, or to throw, or to drive something forward. The image I get is that of a power lifter in training who picks up a huge medicine ball, hoists it over his shoulders, and slams it into the wall. The Holy Spirit threw Him into the wilderness. That image is more like it – in an age which likes its images more than its meanings.

We have family members and friends who serve in the United States military. When they’ve been back to FPC, I’ve been both proud and personally frustrated. I’m proud of them – as we all are. But I’m frustrated that I don’t get the time to pick their brains. I want to know what training is like – basic training that is.

Act of Valor, a major motion picture, has now hit the silver screen, and it details the training of the elite navy seals. First reports are that this is a show that you would want to go see. And I know, it’s not a “chick flick”, but bear with me! The driving of Jesus into the wilderness, to most Bible scholars, is the beginning of His basic training if you will. It was a forty day dose of harsh reality. Jesus is out there where the wild things are, and this is no children’s story. We are told, in Mark’s account, that he was tempted by Satan. Other accounts fill in those details, but Mark doesn’t. Mark does, however, tell us that angels attended Jesus.

An angel, by definition, is a messenger. Elsewhere in Scripture, angels are described as ministering spirits sent to those who will inherit salvation. In the New Testament book of Hebrews, we are told to practice hospitality to strangers because we may just be “entertaining angels unaware.” Most of the conversation about angels revolves around their existence – as if all angels had to do was exist, not exist, or wait around waiting around for us to decide whether they exist or not exist. This I find to be insufferably boring. The arguments for or against are both cyclical and circular.

Back in 1987 during grad school days, I was driving back to my apartment after dropping my dad off at the St. Louis airport. It was a rainy Sunday afternoon, and I took a different way home through an unfamiliar, hilly suburb. On the way down one of the hills, a small yellow sports car, at high rate of speed, turned right up the road that I was going down. Losing traction, it went into a three hundred sixty degree spin right into my lane. In a split-second, I braced myself for impact. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t have a seatbelt on. The wet roads were of no help for traction, and the front of my car slammed into the passenger door of the little car.

I could show you pictures today my Oldsmobile Cutlass and the other driver’s car. Based on that picture, most would conclude that I (or the other driver) shouldn’t be alive. In fact, one person suggested that my guardian angel must have been “on duty” that day. Now for you scientifically-minded, for you proud empiricists, I’ll be the first to say that I cannot prove that an angel saved my life. For that matter, I really don’t want to. But I am convinced, beyond any reasonable doubt, that some of the most incredible things in life cannot be seen.

Out in the desert where things can be seen, with food and water in short supply; out in the wilderness being tempted by Satan; out in the midst of real life where things get harsh and raw and bitter and ugly, that’s where we find Jesus. While preparing these words, I had XM Radio set to channel 71. It’s called the “Siriusly Sinatra” channel. And, while I’m working, I hear Tony Bennett sing one of his signature favorites: “Oh, the good life, full of fun, seems to be the ideal.” I had to laugh.

This is about as far as you and I get on most days. We just want a good life, and we want it to be full of fun. Isn’t that the “ideal”? But what constitutes a “good life”? What constitutes “fun”? If we may get real about it for a moment, we have to factor in the fact that life is going to have its wilderness moments too. The season of Lent, if anything, hammers this home. It tutors us in this. We’re no different than Jesus in this way. There are times in life when we will be alone, when we will be hungry, when we will be thirsty, when our position will be compromised, when we will be tempted to give in to any and every impulse that spells relief, when we will have to trust in someone or something to see us through. Whatever it is that assails us in this life, I’m here to say that it can be wild; it can be beastly. And it’s no rumpus; it’s no party. But we’re here today. Perhaps we shall thank God for God’s angels that, whether we believe or it not or sense it or not, have served us and brought us to this day.

There will be wild beasts and angels. This is the harsh but honest reality of life. For Jesus in the wilderness those forty days, it was beasts and angels on steroids. And our Lord passed the exam.

Speaking of the angels, they were there when Christ was born. They praised God over the hills of Bethlehem. Their audience consisted of blue collar workers at the bottom of the pay scale. Angels were there when He was tempted. When He agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane, they were there. An angel was there to roll away the stone so the world could see that the grave was empty, that Christ was risen.

But at Calvary, at the cross of Christ, the angels were held back. They could only observe, only watch. They could not intervene; they were forbidden to minister. For at the cross, it was Christ alone – and only Him – that could do for us what we could not do for ourselves.

We are like Sendak’s wild things. Jesus is like Max. In Lent, the church says to Jesus: “Oh, please don’t go. We’ll eat you up. We love you so.”

Jesus doesn’t say no. He says: “Lo, I am with you always – even to the end of the age.”

Amen.