The Wilderness
Luke 3:1-6
In the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, Philip his brother tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene. 2 In those days, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the Word of God came to John, ben-Zechariah, in the desert. 3 John went through the entire region of the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4 as is written in the words of Isaiah, the prophet: “A herald’s voice in the desert, crying,
‘Make ready the way of our God;
clear a straight path. 5 Every valley will be filled,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled.
The twisted paths will be made straight,
and the rough road smooth— 6 and all humankind will see the salvation of God.’ ”
Priests for Equality. The Inclusive Bible (p. 2225). Sheed & Ward. Kindle Edition.
What comes to your mind when you think of wilderness? Take a moment. Close your eyes if you feel comfortable. Let your mind wander to somewhere wild.
In the Hebrew Bible the wilderness is a kind of loaded term. It is a recurring theme and comes to represent the Hebrew peoples’ journeying, wandering, suffering. Hebrew narrative is full of stories about Israel anticipating, arriving in, and being exiled from the Promised Land. And every time they’re on their way to their promised home, they have to pass through the unknown—the wilderness, full of possible encounters with creatures of all kinds, exposed to the weather without much protection, vulnerable to attack, uncertain of where the next meal is coming from. Really let’s just call it what it is: the wilderness was full of possible ways to die.
The wilderness also means the desert—not as in the climate so much as in a space that is deserted. The word used in Luke that we translate as “wilderness” literally means solitary, abandoned, desolate. It’s the unpredictable places no one knows. The wilderness is not easy—it’s uncomfortable. And wilderness may mean these deserted spaces in the world around us as much as it represents the uncomfortable, deserted parts of our own inner lives.
This abandoned place is where the word of God came to John the Baptizer. His destiny was to prepare the way for the coming Messiah by turning the hearts of his people to God, and he waited in the desert until he heard from God that it was time. He’d made a home in the wilderness.
There is an Academy-Award winning documentary on Netflix called My Octopus Teacherwhich documents the story of a filmmaker who begins freediving in the deep, cold Atlantic on the western cape of South Africa. Every day, holding his breath for 6 minutes at a time, he dives into an underwater kelp forest, and from his daily visits, he quickly knows the forest so well that he can draw a map of it on paper and in his head. He befriended the wilderness, and in the film he articulates this longing he feels to go back every day, because he’s made a kind of home there. And in this watery wilderness, he encountered a creature whose relationship with him would change his life.
In the unknown we encounter the mystery of God.
John‘s life is like this, too. In the deserted places, John is met with the presence of God. The aloneness, the desolation, the uncertainty—and the fear that comes with it—aren’t these the times in our lives where we have most desperately sought the presence of God? The wilderness is uncomfortable, and it’s the place where God’s presence is the most radiant because there, with all the uncertainty it contains, we really need God, and we can’t ignore our need.
But we live in a world where we can avoid the wilderness if we want to. Humans have gotten pretty good at this—for millennia, we’ve built societies to distance ourselves from the mystery of the surrounding wilderness. The wilderness that opens our hearts to God isn’t only the unknown Out There, though—it’s also the unknown In Here, and the more our external lives remove us from the mystery of a life beyond our control, the more it’s mirrored in our inner lives. We’ve separated ourselves from mystery in the name of ease and convenience. Comfort is always at our fingertips, and so are answers to all our most trivial questions for that matter. Technology tells us we never have to feel the discomfort of our own need—or even our own wondering, which makes it an even braver act when we do face our human limitations. With so many ways to detach ourselves from our own vulnerability, we can easily forget our need for God. If we don’t want to explore our own deserted places, we can forget about it.
I wish I were the kind of person who would freedive in a kelp forest, or who enjoyed backpacking through the Grand Canyon. I bet if I were, I’d have great stories to tell you about powerful encounters with God off the beaten path. But I’m not. I’m scared. I love it outside and I would spend most of my time there if I could, but I want to hike a clearly marked trail, enjoy the beauty in the sunlight, and be back home before the sun goes down to sleep in my safe, warm bed, where I do not fear every crack and sound I hear around me in the dark thank you very much. In other words, I am not someone you want on your backpacking trip.
Why do you imagine I’m afraid of the wilderness? Because I don’t go there! Because it’s mysterious to me. Because to me, it’s isolating and full of risk! But to someone who knows the wilderness, they can become a part of it, and it’s not so scary because they are prepared.
And so it is with our inner wilderness as well.
Someone like John the Baptizer, who is intimately acquainted with the desolate places, can teach us how to prepare. And what is his message? “Come, remember your pain, remember your brokenness, remember the places where you have believed God abandoned you and in return, you have abandoned your God. Repent. Turn back to God—bring your anxieties, fears, and cares, and leave them with God. Be cleansed, be loved, and be forgiven.”
John preaches new hope to a people who had been waiting for deliverance for so many generations that they forgot what they were even looking for.
He says to his people, “Here it is, wake up! Here is your chance to come home! You may have wandered off alone—away from God, away from one another, away into a lonely world of figuring it out on your own and not needing anything from anyone. The home you’re looking for is found by first stepping into the wilderness—where you embrace the unknown and surrender control. In the wilderness, you will feel vulnerable—you remember your need for your God by practicing being vulnerable. In the wilderness you will be faced with that which you would rather ignore in yourself—because it will lead you to exactly where you are most afraid and most in need of love. Be brave. Cry out to God, and receive the new life in God’s perfect love.”
John comes out of the wilderness to invite us into our own.
The wilderness is scary. The wilderness is also where we receive God’s presence. And the wilderness is our way home.
The gospel reading quotes words from Isaiah that were written as a promise for Israel during their exile in Babylon. These words were hope for a people who longed to return home.
Similarly the joyful reading in today’s lectionary from Baruch is a flash of hope at the end of a book filled with lament and confession of sins and God’s people longing for home.
Each of these readings also gives the same imagery of how God will guide the people through the wilderness to their home: lowering mountains and raising up valleys—making the ground even and the path straight. No more wandering in the wilderness. No more anxiety and lostness and longing for home. It will still be the wilderness, and it still might feel scary. But when we start moving towards God, God will prepare the way.
You see the promise God gives to her children is this: God has not and will not abandon you. And if we are willing to befriend our own wilderness—so much that we could draw a map (even from memory!), we will see that even there, there is nowhere we can flee from the Love of God, which is our home.