Jesus’ life - and his story - might very well have ended before it really began. The Palestinian wilderness might easily have become his tomb, and those who periodically look for the bones of Jesus, yet never find them, just might have been successful. Do you remember how the controversial Episcopal bishop, James Pike, went out into that same wilderness with his wife less than twenty years ago, and perished after their car broke down and they were left to the scorching rays of the sun?

That could have happened to Jesus, but it didn’t. His destiny was to die on Golgotha and to be buried in a garden-tomb, not to perish in the desert-like wilderness of his native land. And so, "angels ministered to him" and turned that experience into a spiritual triumph that prepared him for his God-given m…