Naked and afraid

 Over lock down my sleep pattern has been rubbish and I have found myself being awake into the wee small hours then sleeping till half nine (or eleven.) This doesn't seem to matter much and I've actually quite enjoyed letting my body find its natural rhythm.

One of the downsides of being awake half the night is that there's not much to do except watch telly. ( I know, I know I could read mind improving books or intercede for world peace. But the bottom line is I'm in bed and there's a telly opposite me.) So I've surfed the late night shopping channels and landed on something called Naked and Afraid. 

It does pretty much what it says on the tin. A man and a woman, total strangers, are abandoned in some wilderness or jungle with no clothes, no food, no water and are challenged to survive for 21 days before trekking to an extraction point.  All naked bits and pieces are pixellated for the sake of decency.

I've become a bit hooked. It's interesting to see how they tackle building a shelter, starting a fire, finding water, eating bugs, killing snakes and rats and eating them etc etc. Sometimes one person gets sick or gives up and leaves, abandoning their partner to solitude for the rest of the time. Nobody, to date, has been eaten by a lion or a hippo. 

The other day I was reflecting on Jesus and His time in the wilderness and I felt that perhaps this Lent I maybe have a fraction more insight into what it might have been like for 40 days. No food or water. No company. No shelter. No fire. Just hunger and thirst, loneliness and wild animals. Pitch dark freezing nights and hot relentless days.  Scary. Deeply challenging.

Like Jesus , the people on the TV show have not been obliged to undertake the challenge. The modern day exiles all do it because they want to prove something to themselves. Some want their kids to be proud of them. Some want to face their fears head on (one guy was truly terrified of the dark but fought through some moments of almost insane terror to deal with it). Most want the pride and satisfaction of saying they did something hardly anyone gets the chance to do. I'm sure doing it on camera has something to do with it too.  Jesus did it in obedience to the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil.  For nearly 6 weeks.  

So when Jesus was alone in the wilderness for 40 days and nights did He build some sort of shelter?  He was a carpenter so He had the skills but maybe not the ideal materials. Maybe He took His tools with Him - perhaps not;  ( don't take anything with you for the journey ) He presumably wasn't naked but Im sure He didn't take a full wardrobe of outfits for every wilderness occasion with him either.  Did He spend hours or even days trying to make a fire? Did He lie awake at night getting soaked by freezing rain or listening to the hyenas and jackals prowling outside?  Did He cry and tell God he missed his family and that He was hungry and weak and He couldn't do it? Did He get bitten by bugs and cut up His feet on rough terrain?   

We can't know. But knowing Jesus I'm pretty sure He didn't cheat. I think He was determined to do what had been asked of Him however impossible it might have seemed.  I've pondered long and hard the question of Jesus being afraid - and I've come to the conclusion that it's probably the one human emotion Jesus never experienced.   Which is a difficult conclusion to form as I do believe He was in every way as we are and experienced life as a fully human man.   BUT, He experienced that life as a fully loved human man, and perfect love casts out all fear.  So maybe He was tempted to be afraid  ( He was tempted in all ways as we are)  and maybe even felt fear encroaching, but knowing the perfect love of the Father He never succumbed to fear and let it in.  If you watch the TV show you start to realise how frightening being alone in a wilderness with nothing and nobody is.   Fear is a natural reaction to being alone in the dark with wild animals and no food.  Fear is a natural reaction to having to drink unfiltered dirty water which you know could kill you.  Fear is lying down next to a scorpion or treading on a snake.    If Jesus was being tested in the wilderness maybe this was one of the tests.  Could He embrace the perfect love of the Father and not be afraid.  ' Do not be afraid' is one of God's favourite sayings.  Maybe He was speaking this to Jesus all through those 40 long days and nights.  Maybe He is speaking it to us too.

Having done 40 days with no food when He came out of the wilderness Jesus will have been weak and skinny and exhausted and starving. Im sure the first thing He wanted was the first thing the TV show folks want - to see loved ones, eat and have a shower.  The last thing He needed was the devil tempting Him with bread and messing with His head.  In Mark's gospel it seems that angels were ministering to Jesus throughout His wilderness experience, but Matthew says that they only came to Him after He had had his showdown with the devil and won.  This makes more sense to me - that the reward the hungry, lonely, exhausted, weak Jesus received for reversing the temptations of Adam was the succor of angels.

This Lent we are all in a particular and peculiar wilderness.  In the past year we have all been whispered to by the devil.  We have all looked fear in the face.  I'm anticipating that this Lent is going to truly mark the end of a wilderness season and a re-emergence into something new and deeper.  Join me in listening hard for the voice that says ' Do not be afraid'.  Open yourself to perfect love. And receive the ministry of angels.