Reclaiming The Garden

Matthew 4: 1-11

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” ’

   Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you”, and “On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’ Jesus said to him, ‘Again, it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’

   Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written,

“Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.” ’ Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Love went into the desert for us. This was not a retreat or an escape; this was a mission to meet the enemy on his own ground. 

The Word went into the wilderness to reclaim what had been too easily relinquished: our innocence.

The Truth went into the wasteland to draw fire and accomplish what we could not.

Adam and Eve were given the kingdom and had everything they could possibly desire: fruitful trees, pure water, warm shelter and plenteous food. They had relationship with each other, with the land, with other creatures and with their God. But they wanted more.

Jesus was led into a barren rocky land and all he possessed were the words of his Father soaking into the foundations of his being: “You are my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” The whole Kingdom dwelled within those words and he wanted nothing more. He needed nothing else.

“YOU are my Beloved.”

“You ARE my Beloved.”

“You are MY Beloved”

“You are my BELOVED.”

It was enough for the job.

The First Ones were convinced that they lacked the most desirable thing of all and traded their innocence for the knowledge of good and evil – that’s intimacy with good and evil, not just recognition of what is good and what is evil. When one is intimate with both, both begin to mesh and become tangled. What is innocent seems naked and naive. What is corrupt feels desirable and worthy of attainment. The false self becomes paramount: self-consciousness, self-defense, self-reliance, self-indulgence, self-determination, self-sufficiency…

The Last One walked into enemy territory desiring only oneness with the Creator and needing nothing more – he was intimate with his Father and his innocence was intact. He was complete within his true self because he knew he was the beloved of God. He wasn’t selfless; he was the Word of True Self.

He had everything he needed to accomplish what had to be accomplished.

Into the wasteland he went, with nothing more than his innocence (a lack of guile or artifice) and relationship with his Abba. He entered willingly into the furnace of contaminated and defiled desires and faced them in all their guile, artifice and fury. His True Self, the Word, obliterated the habitual patterns of false perceptions and false promises and healed the immense chasm that shattered the world when the First ones believed the lie that intimacy with good and evil could make them something like God. It made them nothing like God. All it did was create a false self that only desired to fill self up with self - a self devoid of fullness, which means nothingness. And being nothing like God is an aching, dry and formless void that continually clutches at empty promises of secrets to fulfillment. 

Into the dry and rainless desert Christ went as Word. Three times, as Word, his voice crashed throughout the universe, 

"NO!"

Three times.

Did he know at that point of a cock crowing three times and of the three denials? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But know this: even Peter’s ultimate betrayal and denial of the innocent Lamb could not overcome the beginning of redemption that Jesus accomplished in the desert. The liar and the seducer of False Self will try until the end of time to re-establish himself as lord of the earth and the shaper of our ends but he has no hope. None at all.

Because Love, the Word, went into the desert for us.

Lent has begun and the desert awaits you. There may be battles in your desert or there may be peaceful ponderings but whatever awaits you, you must go. The desert has been sanctified for your journey. You can either choose to stop, not enter and simply maintain in your present state or you can go through to the garden that was reclaimed for you. There is no going around.

May this Lenten season name you, simplify you and bring you back to the innocence of knowing without a doubt that you are...Beloved.