A Season for the Spirit: Yearning to Be Distinct

Spirit of Jesus, give me the courage to take my heart and look it in the face! It is absurd to be surprised to see there cravings to be special, to be invulnerable, to dominate. Only if you deepen my awareness of your indwelling and the priceless gift of intimacy with the Father which is already mine can these desires give way to the truth that I belong to others and can serve and embrace them.
- Martin L. Smith

I once had a professor encourage us in divinity school to "simply be awake." If we are "awake" to our surroundings and walking in the Spirit then our council to others, our sermon preparation, and our Bible teaching will come from life itself. Martin L. Smith has learned over the years to be awake to his surroundings and listen to the stories of individual lives. What he has learned is that all people yearn to be joined with others. This is solidarity. The other is the yearning to be unique and distinct. This is identity. No wonder there are so many bloggers today. It gives a voice; sometimes vain, sometimes harsh, sometimes poetic, to millions of people a day.

In the Jordan Jesus experienced a massive affirmation of uniqueness. So what becomes of his identification with all of those weak and struggling mortals?

Jesus must reconcile the two. Now comes the literal desert of silence. Jesus is accompanied with only angels and is visited frequently by Satan.

Smith rightly proclaims what is really at stake. I had never made the connection before. What is at risk is his solidarity with ordinary human beings. A showmanship of power would place Jesus in an elite alignment of spiritual entities that have no need for bread and feel no pain.

"To exploit miraculous powers would be to insulate himself from dependence on others and, as a result, separate himself from ordinary men and women."

Would you fully trust a Jesus that used special powers to overcome temptation, have his stomach filled, and avoid pain?

We join Jesus on his journey because "the common way of faith lives with a deep sense of vulnerability." We must all reject the ways of spiritual elitism and bravado. Yet so much emphasis is placed on leadership these days. We use the same tactics and expect the same results as the secular world. There are even books centered around becoming a leader like Jesus. But here I see a vulnerability that depends on God alone and the help of others.

"Charismatic leadership depends on sustaining the illusion that the leader is above and beyond the common masses, an illusion they need as much as he or she does." What does this say about the popular preachers of today? What does it say about Christian culture? What does it say about the charismatic leader who may just need the illusion as much as the person he or she leads? It is time to be confident, not in our own skills and dynamics, but in the Spirit alone that drove Jesus into the wilderness.

Jesus stands with them and his actions demonstrate that he will never stand over them.

Our wilderness experience is about taking a close look at our own hearts; what is "below the surface stream, shallow and light of what we say we feel." We may find that our hearts are insulated, to use Smith's word, by secular skills, bravado, control, manipulation, and self-confidence. Taking our own hearts and looking them in the face is the essence of this (Lenten )wilderness experience. - Dorothy Sayers