Into the Wild
A weekly exploration into Lent #6
Back From the Wild
When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read...
Luke 4:13–-16
Bansky artwork on the partition wall in Bethlehem. Taken on an amplify peace trip in 2018.
It matters where a person comes from. Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and he returned there after leaving the wilderness. The locals know Jesus in this untamed, overlooked place, far outside the centre of power and influence of Jerusalem in Israel. Galilee is a place of prophets, zealots, outsiders and rabble-rousers. It’s also where Jesus grew up, and it’s where He was first rejected. It matters that God put on this flesh and moved into this neighbourhood –- into Nazareth. Jesus returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. He needs that power as He begins His ministry. We certainly need that power as we minister in all sorts of ways today.
Notice as well the phrase: ‘“until an opportune time”.’ The wilderness isn’t done with Jesus. This isn’t the only time He will be tested. Times of testing come and go throughout Jesus’ life – and ours too.
“Historic Palestine, the land between the Jordan River to the east, the Mediterranean to the west, the Negev Desert to the south, and Mount Hermon to the north, has a unique and intriguing position in the region. The land is isolated by three natural barriers: water, deserts, and mountains. And yet the land is found at the crossroads of three continents…the influence of the regional powers over Palestine made it a buffer zone. Palestine was often the distance each of the empires needed from the others to feel secure or the red line that no other power should cross. In reality, and geo-politically, Palestine is, in fact, nothing but a land on the margins..a borderland for diverse empires. While regional powers were satisfied with Palestine as a buffer zone, a buffer was not enough once a power became an empire. Empires were totalitarian in their understanding and wanted to control not just Palestine but any country in the region they could. Due to geopolitical positioning between powers, Palestine has mainly been an occupied land - occupied by the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, British and Israelis.”
Faith In the Face of Empire: the Bible through Palestinian Eyes by Mitri Raheb
What does it matter that Jesus was born where he was born?
What could it mean that his location was one of isolation, on the margins, to an occupied people?
How might that have made the temptations he faced even more difficult?
Where were you born? How does that matter? How does your geo-political location affect your temptations? What might you have to fortify to withstand the temptations in your region? What advantages does it offer you?
Prayer
Jesus, thank You for walking ever-deeper into the wild for us and with us. In times of temptation, Help us follow you in overcoming temptation, in the power of the Spirit. Help us to make courageous, sacrificial and loving decisions today.
Praying for Peace at The Garden of Gethsemane located in East Jerusalem, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. 2018
Action
What do you know about the community where you live and/or worship? Do some research this week. Who lived there first? What happened to create the kind of community that lives there now? What languages are spoken there? See if you can learn some words in the languages that are spoken in your neighbourhood, and also in the language(s) that were spoken there 500 years ago.
Prayer
God of discontent, you are not satisfied with the present state of the world - and you expect us not to be satisfied with it either. Teach us to identify with the suffering of Jesus in this world and so to live into the blessing you desire for us and for all.
Amen. 1
More Resources
Books
Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys, by Richard Twiss
Unsettling Truths, by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah
20 Steps to Exegete your City: https://churchforvancouver.ca/urban-ministry-how-to-exegete-a-neighbourhood/
Walter Brueggemann, A Way other than our own.