Jesus in the Wilderness
For some, this may a controversial choice of poem to reflect this Sunday's Gospel reading. The poet, Malika Booker, engages with the humanity of Jesus as he hungers and is tempted by the devil in the desert. She focuses on his suffering with vivid imagery, which is why I like the poem so much. When I read Luke 4:1-13, I imagine Jesus walking serenely through the desert unbothered by any sort of physical discomfort, because He is God. However, He is also a man, and would have suffered terribly.
Here, Jesus is as one with the suffering people of the world, the hungry and the oppressed, just as He is on the Cross. In this unity, hope is found for those who suffer, for Jesus ultimately beats death through His suffering and through His Resurrection for the whole of mankind. God, in His love for us, suffers with us and for us.
After the poem, Malika Booker explains her vision .
Jesus in the Wilderness
by Malika Booker
1.Temptation
I know you were weary those forty days
in the wilderness. What was that wilderness like—
dry dust, and swirling wind, no colour,
as the devil’s flowers do not give birth
to seeds here? What is it to live in the forest
of devil’s yarn, like a goat wild and yearning,
tempted, strong of will yet weak of mind?
What is it to want? What is temptation but yielding
of flesh. How fast did your heart beat against
ribcage in anger at these tantalising abominable
lies. No one talks about limbs weakening,
or rats gnawing your belly, lice in your hair,
like in the belly of the ship, no one speaks
about that. To build a saint, one needs to gloss
over the body’s ordinariness, one needs
to forget there is mess and nastiness in the gut,
the dry throat swallowing saliva. The ache of spit
sliding along cracked lips and down your
neck back. The way the stomach contracts,
its punch all uneven, each like a xxx of fists.
2. How not to drown in desire
day stretched like a bending river
day stretched and curled like a meandering river
when days began to stretch
when his days began to curl
when his days became a meandering river
it’s undertow dragging him
when the days became deceptive, a river
meandering. It’s undertow
when his days became a meandering river
when his days began to curl into a river
when his days stretched and curled
when his days stretched, curling into a river
whose undertow dragged him weary to the surface
3. Sufferation
When his days stretched, curling into a river
whose undertow ripped his skin right to the soul
he who believed, stood firm in dry dust,
where flowers do not give birth from seeds,
where wild goats stroll. No one talks
of his trembling limbs, the gnawing rats
in his gut, the fleas congregating to party
in his hair. No one talks of the reptile’s guffaw
as the Devil sucked succulent orange over forty
days and nights, while he who believed stitched
then unpicked the stitches from his bloody lips
how the taunt of the orange juice ached
his neck back in the ripe stench of the boat’s belly.
How they gripe, the dry heaves scraping
his neck back his belly swelling pregnant with emptiness.
Since those days we fast in our thirst for salvation,
long forgotten, the bloodied scar on his nailed palm.
Copyright © 2024 by Malika Booker. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on January 5, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
About this Poem
“This poem is part of a larger poetic project wherein I reimagine characters from the King James Bible by relocating them to the Caribbean. Here, Jesus is a Caribbean Black man wandering through the wilderness, grappling with the physical and psychological impacts and indignities endured whilst fasting in the desert and resisting the devil’s temptations. Jesus simultaneously occupies two literal sites: the biblical desert and the belly of a slave ship crossing the Middle Passage. The poem uses repetition in both rhetorical and contemplative attempts to inflect a musical intensity representative of Jesus’s mentality during these forty days.”
—Malika Booker
https://poets.org/poem/jesus-wilderness
Today's readings: Deuteronomy 26:4-10 Psalm 90 Romans 10:8-13 Luke 4:1-13
Photo Credit: Malika Booker - creativetourist.com/event/poetry-London
Source: First Sunday of Lent
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