Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea

And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well-pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. - Mark 1.11-12

            The juxtaposition would jar us if familiarity had not worn it smooth: The Son’s action fully pleases the Father; the Spirit runs him out of town. Drove him out: it’s a violent verb, the image of a burly bouncer as he grips a drunk by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his britches and eighty-sixes him out of the bar. Three times before the end of this very chapter, Mark uses it twice to describe Jesus’ ministry of exorcism (v.34, 39). Jesus offers well-pleasing worship and God treats Jesus the way Jesus treats demons.

            Perfect obedience does not guarantee a pleasant outcome. Sometimes it invites a difficult one.

            In her book Clay in the Potter’s Hands, Diana Glyer notes that once a potter finishes shaping her work on the wheel, she sets it aside to dry. “I don’t know what pots are thinking, but sometimes I imagine that this is a pretty scary stage in the life of that pot. After enduring so much pressure and experiencing such close, careful attention from the potter, now all of a sudden the pot is cut loose, pulled away from the wheel, set aside, and left alone.” Saint John of the Cross called this the Dark Night of the Soul, which does not mean having a bad day or even enduring depression. It refers to times when it seems that God has driven us away from God, jumped on our backs like a rodeo cowboy on an unbroken bronc and ridden us hell-for-leather into the empty spaces of spiritual desert and left us there.

            But Jesus had work to do in the desert, and the angels showed up right on time.

            Don’t assume that if God seems distant, you have sinned. Don’t assume that you walk in obedience just because God appears present. The sick need the physician; those who are well get sent out on maneuvers. If the Spirit has driven you into demon-haunted places, if you sit like a pot on the shelf or a wineskin in the smoke (Ps 119.83), be patient and have faith. Combat is coming, and the angels are on the way.