In those days, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son, with you, I am well pleased.” Mark 1:9-15.

And so, this is how it begins in Mark. In seven concise verses in his first chapter Mark covers the period from Jesus’ baptism by John to the momentous event of John’s arrest – a sequence that Matthew takes four chapters to relate. Similarly, Mark covers Jesus’ time in the wilderness in two sentences – And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angles waited on him. Admittedly, reporting in much greater detail, nevertheless Matthew’s account of Jesus in the wilderness takes him eleven long verses to relate.

Mark is not only concise but he punctuates his accounts with dramatic images. For him at Jesus baptism, the heavens are torn apart – schizomai is the Greek word he uses – meaning to rip, to tear apart in a way that cannot be put back together again. Compare this to Matthew and Luke’s milk toast image of the heavens merely opening – of clouds lazily parting.

Mark reports that at Jesus’ baptism the voice from heaven thunders you are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. Note here God’s direct address to Jesus – you– God declares – leading later commentators to wonder is Mark inferring that it’s only Jesus who hears God’s voice? By contrast, in Matthew and Luke, the curtain of heaven gently opens and the voice from above is of God addressing the bystanders – declaring to them that this this is my Son, the Beloved in whom I am well pleased. And following the baptism Mark tells us that immediately, the Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness. Just as schizomai carries the strong meaning of tearing irreparably apart so here, Mark’s use of the Greek ekballei – as in the Spirit expelled Jesus into the wilderness conveys a strongly energetic action. Compare this striking image with Matthew and Luke’s use of anechthe – meaning to lead up, to bring up – and one gets the impression of Jesus, leisurely strolling at the Spirit’s direction into the wilderness – a much more sedate movement.

And so, it is with Mark. There’s no long and colorful description of Jesus’ birth as in Matthew and Luke. With Mark, Jesus emerges from obscurity onto the scene as a fully grown man – not born into his Sonship but adopted into it at baptism.  We shouldn’t miss the implication in Mark – as with Jesus so with us – like him we too are adopted by God through baptism.

It’s customary on the first Sunday in Lent for the preacher to focus on Jesus’ time of wilderness testing – after all isn’t that what Lent is supposed to be about for us – a time of testing -facing temptation and enduring privation? Yet, my attention is drawn to Mark’s assertion that before any testing takes place God proclaims Jesus as the Beloved. Being loved – now here’s a novel way to frame a theme for Lent.

Accepting unconditional love – love without strings – is in my experience a much harder thing to bear than having to pass the tests of temptation. I know objectively, that I am loved by God because I tend to believe what I am told – esp. if the Gospels are the vehicle for conveying this truth to me. Yet, knowing is one thing – actually experiencing is quite another. Do I experience myself being loved by God? My answer is mixed and equivocal – it’s yes but mostly, no.

For instance, I know that God loves me because looking back on my life I can see the loving hand of God guiding, sustaining, and blessing me through the ups and downs. Projecting forwards on the basis of past experience I know objectively, that God will continue to love me no matter what I do.  Yet, in the present moment, I often feel very detached from the direct experience of God’s love. I know I am loved but do I feel the love? I find that my shame interferes with the enjoyment of being unconditionally loved.

The real challenge of my spiritual journey has been – and remains – to experience the reality that God loves me with an unconditional love in the present moment. This requires me to see the unconditionality of God’s love through the thick veil of my shame. My spiritual struggle is not to be good – although I always believe I can do better than I’ve done. My spiritual struggle is to allow myself to be loved despite my shame.

The question boils down to how can I allow myself to experience God’s no strings attached love when I feel the way I do – mired in my secret shame? There is my inability to love God as much as I feel I should. The faulty logic here is that if I loved God more – I could reciprocate more – then might I not feel more of God’s love. In this context reciprocity is such a ridiculous notion. But the main source of my shame lies in my fear of being loved by God. Despite my longing to feel God’s love of me, the sorry truth is shame becomes a convenient excuse for avoiding – shying away from being loved. Shame is the disguise my fear adopts.

Being the one who does the loving – no matter how imperfectly – is easier than being the one who is loved – warts and all. My shame is actually, not that I am unworthy of God’s love – but that I am afraid of it. You see, while the lover chooses to love – the beloved has no control over being loved. The real source of my shame lies not in unworthiness but in the fear of being loved unconditionally. Being loved unconditionally exposes my fear of being the one who is no longer in control.

In his poem Love III, George Herbert describes our anguished experience of shying away from being loved. In response to God’s invitation to sit down and experience love, Herbert replies: I, the unkind the ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee. Thank you, God, but no thank you! To be beloved of God is too intrusive and potentially demanding, too intimate an experience. I resonate with Herbert. Being loved exposes me to my shame – I am unworthy. But more to the point it exposes me to my vulnerability and fear of losing control. The lover chooses to love. But the beloved has no control over being loved. Between humility and humiliation – there lies the finest of lines.

We are in a continual negotiation around the shame of loving and being loved. God is no respecter of comfort zones. As the lover, God pursues us and has no intention of allowing us to set the comfort level for intimacy.

In his poem Love III, George Herbert describes the struggle with fear and shame – our urgent need to shy away from surrendering to being loved. Herbert maps the process of surrender. Protesting his fear he cries out:I, the unkind the ungrateful? Ah, my dear, I cannot look on thee. Yet, Love outmaneuvers him by reminding him he need have no such fear:  Love takes my hand and smiling did reply, ‘Who made the eyes but I?’

But the struggle is not yet over. For Herbert complains: Truth Lord, but I have marred them, let my shame go where it doth deserve. And here Love delivers the suckerpunch for any good believing Calvinist. Love gently reminds him: And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

Cowered and cornered, Herbert feints surrender to Love’s insistence with:  Ah, my dear, then I will serve. He feints surrender with a ruse. As with the one who loves – the one who serves paradoxically maintains control. But Love is not fooled by Herbert’s feint of humility. You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat. With nowhere else to hide, Herbert accepts – abandons all pretence of having the power of choice. Becoming the one who is served – the one who surrenders to being loved -he whispers: So I did sit and eat. 

In the end, the only choice we really have is to surrender in the face of God’s relentless pursuit to love us. I can speak about my struggle to surrender to being loved by God because I’m not alone in this. We all know that when it comes to God’s love, it is not about earning and deserving but believing and receiving. Yet, so much of our identity is predicated on being worthy – which is just a way of dressing up the fact that we are afraid to lose control. If we are deserving of God’s love, we tell ourselves, it can only be to the extent of having somehow, earned it. In our desire to reciprocate we evade the humiliation of being the undeserving party.

The truth is we are be-loved. We are all be-loved because God’s love is gifted to us without strings. Surrender to being loved is the only healthy response we can choose to make.

Lent’s call to a deeper self-reflection allows us to see more clearly into our struggle to be the ones who must surrender to love. In our resistance we want to use shame to distance ourselves from the experience of being loved by God. In the struggle to surrender to love we turn to Lent’s reminder of the disciplines of worship, prayer, and self-denial – the latter having little to do with privation and more to do with having the courage to listen beyond the cacophony of our self-preoccupations.

Mark ends his first chapter with Jesus returning from his time of preparation in the wilderness to find John has been arrested. The time he says is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe the good news! Lent reminds us that the only time is now -that there’s no time to lose!

We will be familiar with Love III as part of a series of metaphysical poems written by the 17th-century Anglican divine, George Herbert. Less familiar to some may be that in 1911, the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams took Herbert’s poems – setting them as his Five Mystical Songs within which the poem Love III is the third in sequence.

Love (III)
George Herbert – 1593-1633
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
“A guest,” I answered, “worthy to be here”:
Love said, “You shall be he.”
“I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on thee.”
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
“Who made the eyes but I?”
“Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.”
“And know you not,” says Love, “who bore the blame?”
“My dear, then I will serve.”
“You must sit down,” says Love, “and taste my meat.”
So I did sit and eat.