Mark 1:12,13

LENTEN LESSONS

‘And immediately the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness. And He was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan.’

Mark 1:12

In the desert country the Manhood of our Saviour was as completely isolated as it could be from contact with humanity, yet that long retreat was but a still more emphatic example of that retirement which we often find our Lord desirous to obtain.

I. The fast of Lent.—It was in the great Fast of forty days that His withdrawal of His Humanity from human contact was the most marked; this withdrawal lasted as long as the Fast; from this we see that the fasting was in secret. From the same fact we may notice that, if our fasting is to be spiritually profitable, it must be coupled with some degree of withdrawal or isolation of ourselves. We need not find an actual desert country to which to betake ourselves in the body during Lent; but seclusion and retirement there must be if Lent is to teach us its real lessons. Perhaps some may shrink from being alone with God. To evade the warning of the Voice within is a fearful danger. To endeavour to escape from a sense of the Divine Presence is as ungrateful as futile. Let us, therefore, see that in Lent we have our times of seclusion, for thorough searching of heart, mind, and soul.

II. The trials of Lent.—The Temptation and Fast of Jesus were full of bitterness, and our own spiritual withdrawals into the desert country must, therefore, have these trials. Shall we say then, ‘What shall Lent profit a man?’ Nay, look again, and see in the sorrows of the Son of God both His joy and our own! There must have been a gleam of joy in the heart of Jesus even amid the sorrowful trials of His Temptation and Fast in the wilderness.

III. Spiritual benefits of Lent.—Herein we may see the benefits accruing from a right use of Lent—spiritual joys growing out of sorrows. Assaults of Satan there may be in times of isolation and seclusion, loss, too, of temporal pleasures—but instead thereof (a) what increased opportunities for holding communion with our Maker, (b) what an insight into the true nature of things, (c) what a rending asunder of the veil which hides spiritual realities from us in times of worldly ease, (d) what lifting up of heart and mind into the domain of the spirit-world, (e) what loosening of fleshly ties, what shaking off of sensual encumbrances, what strengthening of the pulse of the soul’s life.

Rev. C. G. C. Baskcomb.

Illustrations

(1) ‘It is not without special instruction that it was immediately after His baptism that Christ was “led,” or as Mark says—to show how painful the ordeal was—“ driven by the Holy Ghost to be tempted of the devil.” He had just received the Holy Ghost, and was anointed by Him “without measure” in His three great offices; when, directly the new grace is put to a severer test. Satan, jealous and provoked, attacks Him with exceptional violence and malice! The whole history of the saints of the Catholic Church bears testimony that, in lonely hours and quiet seasons, the Evil One has been the nearest, and the battle has been the severest! One might have thought that a man fasting in the wilderness would have been safe from danger. But no place is safe, no time is safe; and the unlikeliest is the most likely, because Satan always takes advantage of improbabilities.’

(2) ‘The associations of the number forty in this connection are interesting and significant. Moses is represented as having thrice fasted for this period: when he received the law in the mount (Exodus 24:18), and twice afterwards. The three occasions are gathered together in Deuteronomy 9:9; Deuteronomy 9:18; Deuteronomy 9:25. Elijah went fasting to Horeb during forty days (1 Kings 19:8). The symmetry of the use of the number forty in this relation, taken along with its evidently approximate use in other connections, cannot fail to suggest that a symbolical meaning is attached to it. It certainly here means a fast prolonged to the utmost known in human experience, and beyond the utmost limit of endurance possible to human nature in the normal state and level of its life.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

CHRIST AND THE CHRISTIAN

Christ was a representative Person. In no instance of His life did He act other than in His official relation. Thus all He taught, did, and endured had a substitutionary reference to His people, and in no instance was exclusively of a personal and private character. That our Lord’s Temptation was of such a character cannot be doubted.

I. The Tempter.—Mark’s language admits of no reasonable misconception. Yet there are individuals who, in their judicial blindness and supercilious self-conceit, have found it convenient and soothing to ignore the positive existence of Satan altogether, affirming that there is no devil! Others reject the idea of personality, substituting for it the vague, incoherent notion of a principle of evil—an impersonal influence—a phantom of power! That our Lord was not acted upon by an abstract principle of evil—a shadowy, impalpable foe—all the circumstances of His most wonderful Temptation clearly demonstrate. O Christian! forget not that in the great moral conflict in which you are enlisted, you are opposed by no mere principle, or influence, or phantom of evil, but by a Foe possessing a distinct personal existence, to whom—without the slightest deification—we ascribe an intelligence, power, and presence second only to the Divine Being Himself. ‘Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God.’

II. The occasion of the Temptation.—Our Lord, as the Mediator of His Church, had lessons to learn which could only be learned in this fiery conflict—a fitness to be attained as the sympathising High Priest of His people, which only could be acquired as He Himself was tempted in all points as we are. No wonder, then, that, while His robes were yet streaming with the baptismal waters, and the halo of the Spirit’s glory yet encircled His head, and the cadence of His Father’s voice yet lingered upon His ear, that He should be led into the depths of the forest—the abode of wild beasts—to battle with the ‘Prince of Darkness,’ surrounded and backed by the confederated host of countless demons! Is not this often the experience of the believer? In nothing, perhaps, is the identity of Christ and the Christian more signal. Have not some of our sharpest temptations, and sorest trials, and heaviest afflictions, immediately succeeded a season of high, holy, spiritual exercise?

III. The Spirit and the Temptation.—The relation of the Holy Spirit to the Temptation of Christ—and thus His association with us in all our temptations—is a most remarkable and instructive feature. In the symbol of a dove He had just appeared in the baptismal scene of our Lord; and now, in a not less remarkable and significant way, He appears on the field in one of the most important events of Christ’s life. The forms of expression which record it vary, yet all agree as to the personal and actual relation of the Holy Spirit with the circumstance. Mark expresses it thus: ‘the Spirit driveth Him into the wilderness.’ But whatever the force which the Holy Spirit employed, enough that He was personally connected with our Lord in His conflict with the Evil One—sustaining, comforting, and crowning Him with victory. Descending upon Him in the emblem of a dove at His baptism, He now appears in the closest sympathy with His Temptation—a twofold baptism thus imparted to our Lord—the baptism of water, and the baptism of the Spirit! And thus, associated with all our temptations, is the Holy Spirit our Shield and Comforter. Not a shaft can touch, not a temptation befall us, but the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us as His temple, is present to quench the dart, or, if it wounds us, to heal, comfort, and sanctify.

Rev. Octavius Winslow, d.d.

Illustration

‘A rope is strained to prove its strength, an engine is tried to test its power; nothing which is to be of service is used without proof of its reliability. A thing may look fair enough on the outside, but it may have a flaw which makes it useless. The greater the work for which a thing shall be used, the greater the test to which it must be put first. In the great work of saving the world, and leaving us an example which should never lead us wrong, Jesus Christ had to be tested, proved, to show He was fit; and the greatest and best reason for us to remember is, He can take His place by the side of us, and feel for us when we are tempted to go wrong. “He was in all points tempted like as we are,” so He can feel and be sorry in our hardest fight, for He can remember His own.’