Lent Meditation: Day 6 - February 23, 2026

📖 Scripture Verse

“And the Spirit immediately drove [Jesus] out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.” Mark 1:12-13

🕯️Meditation

The wild animals are only mentioned in Mark’s version of the temptation in the wilderness.  It is an ambiguous image.  In Psalm 91, a prayer in which the psalmist is undergoing a time of trial, it says, “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways….You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.” (91:11,13).  Here wild animals are something to be defeated, with the aid of angels. They are a  force of destruction and threat.  Yet in the prophet Isaiah, discussing the one on whom the Spirit rests, we read that “the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid….They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain….” (Isaiah 11:6a,9a).

As a symbol of temptation and trouble, I am moved that the wild basts might be like the threatening lion and adder, or like the peaceable wolf and lamb.  In our own lives, sometimes we move through situations that are fearsome and painful and deeply troubling, to a place of peace where we can look back and see that the pain and troubles we went through have shaped us for good, and given us strength and courage and wisdom we might not otherwise have had.  Jesus in the wilderness with the wild beasts, attended by angels shows us that in the midst of troubles we may be being given gifts, and what looks fearsome today may be a peaceable kingdom of blessing tomorrow.

🙏 Prayer

Gracious Spirit, be with us in the wilderness and trials of life, help us to strive with wild beasts and triumph.  Let the troubles of life lie down in peace, and give us a vision of that kingdom where there is no strife, the calf and the lion and the fatling together.  Amen.

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