The heart of any covenant is an intersection: the Latin root of the word means a coming-together, and no pact can occur without a meeting. This intersection is most often commemorated by a symbol to recall a place where there is no longer you and I, but now We. Whether this symbol be a toast made, a document signed, a rainbow, or a Baptism, it speaks of a chasm that has been broached, a connection made, a link between two parties who now promise to be for the other, rather than for themselves alone. In the biblical context, covenants like the one symbolized by Noah’s rainbow are more than just rebinding and repairing the brokenness of the past, they are a bold statement about the future: never again, God says, will we be parted. This rainbow – our rainbow - is a promise, not of smooth sailing and blue skies, but of an eternity of dogged commitment and care. It is the tender gaze of a lover: I will never lose sight of you, no matter how far you roam. Julian of Norwich assures us that God “did not say you will not be assailed, you will not belabored, you will not be disquieted.” Rather, she tells us that God grants us a much more potent assurance: that we will not be overcome. The letter of Peter is particularly blunt in its agreement. Even Jesus suffered to “lead you to life in God;” which is to say, not even the Son of God was free from the pain and crippling doubts of human existence. Mark tells us that the Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert to face temptation - in ways that are only too easy for us to understand - by selfishness, ambition, despair. “[Jesus] was among wild beasts;” Mark’s laconic prose tells us all we need to know. During the Lent in which we now find ourselves - embedded in pandemic, the horizon of a complete return to normalcy still ever-receding and our ministering angels all too often in confounding disguise - perhaps it will be this place of desolation, of loneliness and hardship, where we draw closest to Jesus. But like Noah, Jesus is a survivor. Once on the other side of the trial, Jesus too is immersed in rebuilding and re-connecting with what was lost. Jesus chooses the option of the Other – the connection, the covenant that the psalmist tells us will lead us in the ways of love and truth. In Mark’s very next verse, Jesus has moved, back from the desert into the heart of life, the Galilee - from the frying pan of personal demons right into the fire of socio-political turmoil. John has just been arrested, and it is Jesus, without a moment’s hesitation, who picks up John’s endangered mission, and carries on. |