Where do we anticipate the Spirit to lead us and what do we expect in this life by following Christ?

After Jesus is baptized by John, the Spirit descends on him and then The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan. John is arrested and will soon be dead. Assuming the public ministry of the Christ we believe to follow.

Jesus is driven out into the wilderness. There is almost a violent situation to this, as if Jesus has no knowledge of the matter — he is forced out. If we look further in this chapter of Mark, we see the same words used again, but this time it is Jesus driving out demons in the same way.

And he cured many who were sick with diseases of one kind or another; he also drove out many devils (Mark 1:34)

And he went all through Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out devils (Mark 1:3)

It is curious at times how we use language. We may be referring to someone who is driven by his emotions or his ambition; we may even be referring to someone acting as if possessed. Some of the time this will be expressed in a negative manner and sometimes in a positive manner. We see in the Gospel a man possessed not by a demon, not by something that impedes his freewill but by the Spirit of God, a liberating driving force.

At the risk of muddling metaphors, we could say that although Jesus is driven out into the wilderness it is Jesus who is in the driving seat. The will of the Spirit and the will of Jesus are identical.

Jesus who is driven by the Spirit enters the wilderness, the place of demons and wild beasts, but when Jesus emerges from the other side, it is he who drives the demons out. He who frees those who are bound to slavery by being possessed. This spiritual warfare reflects the public ministry of Jesus as he dies the death of the spotless lamb to reclaim the bondage of all sin and death once for all.

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit (1 Pet 3:18)

Perhaps the most frightening yet liberating aspect of this is our being brought to God.

We pray as Jesus taught us our Father who is in Heaven? Thy will be done. Are we really ready for God’s will to be done? Are we ready and willing to be guided by the Spirit of God, regardless of where that may take us?

In the same prayer we pray lead us not into temptation. To follow Christ is to be guided by his Spirit, to be guided by his spirit to be possessed by his Spirit.

In today’s world, we are often forced to focus on the conflicts between peoples and nations, yet the source of all conflict, that conflict taking place in our own life, is all too readily ignored or interpreted. In Lent we put ourselves to the test, we put ourselves in temptations way. We take a deep look at how we live, we seek out those things that have taken possession of our lives and then we take them out. We purge ourselves of those things that interfere with our freedom in pursuing Christ in order to be possessed by him.

I must be clear here, I am not saying that we lose our free will by being possessed by the Spirit but as in the case of two lovers we share the same bond one to the other; a bond that does not restrict but expands our life. The infinite all-powerful Creator reunited with his creation in a bond of enduring love. There is always the danger, of course, that we turn our own distorted will into God’s so for forty days each year we enter into our wilderness, our Lent, to do battle with our own demons only then can we begin to see if we are more like the ministering angels than like the beasts.