Immediately afterward the Spirit drove Jesus out into the wilderness;
a dove’s force
plays both
assurer and
adversary
alighting lightly
from above
brings comfort
before conflicta unity of one
and heaven is tested
to become
all and heavenwithout enlargement
assurance is a trap
satisfied with
an inner narcissistadversity sharpens
an appreciation
an affirmation
practiced in mercylook sharp
a dove become an eagle
is our standard
to assail heaven
There is no avoiding a hero’s journey. The very blessing giving a token of living a quest leads to a willingness to be tested. Unlike the temptation details of Matthew and Luke or those of Mary and Nicodemus in John, Mark simply notes that temptation takes place. A benefit of a lack of details or examples is that this motif can be seen all through Mark’s telling.
Temptations are not overcome marking some immunity from them. They will continue to run through the story to the final words of forsakenness and fear.
In the wilderness, carrying a deep appreciation of being loved, we understand danger abounds but the blessing already received is greater still. Testing a blessing will anneal it.
Mark’s eleven uses of ἐκβάλλω (ekballō “drove”, “forced”, “impelled”) are connected with exorcism. Blessing, as a cheap grace, needs exorcising. Without this pressurized setting of testing it will be too easy to fall into the façade of a prosperity gospel.
It is at this point that the gentle dove shows its other side—eagle. Nikos Kazantzakis notes this in his statement of faith, Saviors of God: Spiritual Exercises, when he has an eagle drop and insert its talons into the back of your neck to drag you where you did not want to go.
While urgency has been present and implied with “beginning”, “Isaiah”, and “repentance”, we have here the first of the urgent words, εὐθύς (euthys “at once”, “immediately”). Richard W. Swanson’s translation of this in, Provoking the Gospel of Mark, has in caps, “BANG”. Swanson notes that “immediately” is too long a word to be immediate, to speed up and intensify a story!