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Why go into the wilderness? I mean, Jesus has just been baptized. He's heard the words of God saying, this is my beloved, in whom I am well pleased. I bet that was a pretty nice experience.

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I mean, I imagine that would be a sweet spot just to dwell in and soak it up. But instead, of just resting on his laurels, resting in his belovedness, Jesus is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. But I mean, why?

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Why does he have to go? Because who wants to go into the wilderness? Now, many of you know what it's like to experience the wilderness. Some of you have had experiences of desolation, experiences of loneliness, heartache, suffering, that feel like they go on and on with no end.

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The wilderness is not a place we want to go on purpose. But Jesus, led by the Spirit, enters the wilderness on purpose, where he fasts, for 40 days. Some of you may know what it's like to fast as a way to gain spiritual clarity.

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Some of you may be fasting for Ramadan. But a 40-day fast? That's a long time to deprive yourself of food on purpose. You might say that Jesus is dying on purpose here in the wilderness.

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The idea of Jesus already beginning to die here in the wilderness came to mind because of the painting you'll find on the cover of your bulletin. On the Vanderbilt Lectionary Library page, it's the featured artwork for this past Sunday's lectionary texts. And it was painted by a Russian painter named Ivan Kramskoi, who was known for his realistic portrayals and for lifting up the experiences of peasants, the poor of his country, as models for his art. And I see Jesus's hands in this painting, and they're all sinew and bone.

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Someone who is clearly starving to death. Jesus's whole ministry, even from the very beginning, was a life lived in solidarity with all who suffer, all who hunger, all who dwell in wilderness, and all who face temptation. He fasts for 40 days in order to face the temptations of the devil. Howard Thurman, the great mystic and theologian of the 20th century, gave a sermon while he was teaching at Boston University on the topic, what shall I do with my life?

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And the sermon was based on this story of Jesus in the wilderness as a way of looking at these temptations as our temptations when we're trying to discern what it is we shall do with this one precious life that we've been given. Thurman paints broad strokes with these temptations, with the first being essentially about sustenance. What is it that we believe people need to sustain themselves?

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And for Thurman, he preached that the temptations for his hearers have been that they disregard the spiritual nature of the calling, to focus only on the material needs of people in the world. If we only serve the poor, if we only feed the hungry, then we are doing what God wills us to do. But in Jesus's answer, we find that no, people need spiritual nourishment too.

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Yes, we need to feed the hungry. Yes, we need to take care of the poor, but also we need to give people a reason to live. Howard Thurman goes on to give what these other temptations might mean for his listeners on the day that he was preaching. So it made me think about how we might see these temptations for us in our time.

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For me, the first temptation Jesus faces of turning stone into bread sounds a lot like the temptation to find our own source of security and safety, to secure for ourselves what we imagine will sustain us. Now if I was Jesus and had been hungry after 40 days of fasting, food sure would have seemed like what it's going to be to give me that sustenance and safety and security. But when I was in seminary, finding a call after my education was my bread. That was what I believed would sustain me.

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But after getting the ability to receive a call in October of my senior year, I came up with dead end after dead end of job searches over the months of that senior year. And it felt like a wilderness experience for me, wondering, God, where am I supposed to serve? I'm here. I've done this education.

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Why is it not easy for me to find a job? Now, my husband was doing a CPE that following year in Yuma, and they asked me if I wanted to apply as well. Yuma, Arizona. I hadn't planned on doing a CPE residency, but wilderness, here we came.

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We entered into a year-long residency, and if you've ever been to the southwest corner of Arizona, you know the kind of desert wilderness that I'm talking about. And during that time, I continued to struggle with my call. If I was originally called to be a pastor, why is this not working out? The temptation to just meet my own needs with a job was front and center.

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But God's Word is what sustains us. The second temptation Jesus experiences is to defy the laws of gravity, to throw himself off of this temple, to let the angels take care of him, to prevent him from smashing his feet against a rock. How we might see this temptation for us today is to be seen as exceptional.

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That we, because we're following God's call, should somehow have things handed to us more easily. that because it's already a struggle being a Christian and being a leader in the Christian faith, somehow we should be able to get a break, have things easier for us in some ways. Surely finding a pastoral call should be easier, right? The temptation to be exceptional made me question my faith when I was in that year of wilderness in Yuma, Arizona.

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I wondered, God, if I'm not supposed to be a pastor, what am I doing? Why are you not making this easier for me? So I gave up. I thought, Okay, maybe I'll go on and get a PhD.

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So I applied to four different PhD programs that year. I did really great on my GRE. And then I got rejection after rejection letter.

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So lesson learned, trying to find a job my own way, trying to find the next steps by finding my own path wasn't going to do it. So I had to die on purpose to my need to be exceptional, to think that somehow because I was going into the ministry that this job hunt would be easier for me. Nope. We are not exceptional.

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Each of us is going to face the same human struggle. The third temptation of Jesus has the devil pointing out all of the kingdoms of the world, saying, all of this could be yours. If only you would bow down and worship me. Now, what might that mean for us is the temptation for power, the temptation for control.

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Again, returning to my experience in Yuma, knowledge is a sort of power. And if you know your future, sometimes you feel like you can control it. Having the knowledge of where you're going to go after seminary feels really good. And it feels like a little bit of control.

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But what if we're supposed to die on purpose? To our own desire for power and control, and instead to trust that God has us, and that God will continue to lead us at just the right time, not in our own timing, but in God's time. Turns out, after our time in Yuma, there was a position in a church only 5 minutes from the house where we had moved to in San Antonio,

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a position that wasn't available when I was still in seminary. And five years after that, I applied again to PhD programs, and this time I was accepted into everyone. Now, I couldn't have known these things would happen when I was in the wilderness. But what I needed was to trust in God's word.

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to let go of the need to be exceptional, and to die to the need to control my future. Waiting in the wilderness feels like dying. But during that time, may we be sustained, not by what we imagine will give us security and safety, but by the Word of God. And let us remember that just as Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, so too are we accompanied every step of the way.

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We are never alone. When we face our wilderness experiences, when we face our temptations, God is with us. Jesus has walked this wilderness before. And the Holy Spirit is there helping us to take those deep breaths and remembering that God will lead us into new life.

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Amen.