Theme: The Wilderness

Theme: The Wilderness

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

Readings:
Isaiah 40:1-11 – Isaiah prophesies the coming of the Lord.
2 Peter 3:8-15 – The Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, so be ready.
Mark 1:1-8 – John the Baptist proclaims the good news that the Messiah is coming.

Mark 1:1-8

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. [2] As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,  "See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,  who will prepare your way;  [3] the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:  'Prepare the way of the Lord,  make his paths straight,' "  [4] John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. [5] And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. [6] Now John was clothed with camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. [7] He proclaimed, "The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. [8] I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

Things which are new and different and perhaps a little dangerous always cause a stir, at least for a while. And people who have the courage to be different, especially eccentrics, and more especially those who carry a hint of danger, are always the source of excitement and interest.

John the baptizer simply appeared in the wilderness. What a stirring and perhaps terrifying sight he must have been. It seems he'd spent some long time in the wilderness, for he emerged as a wild man, dressed in animal skins, and eating locusts - can you imagine anything worse! - which he washed down with wild honey.

There were a number of religious communities in the wilderness, the most famous being the Essene monastery at Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were later discovered. The Essenes were a Jewish sect around the time of Jesus, who showed quite a lot of similar characteristics to John. They ate and drank sparingly, and they practiced a form of baptism, which was unknown in more orthodox Jewish sects. And Qumran is quite near the Jordan valley where John practiced his ministry, so John may well have had some connection with the Essenes, or at least have been influenced by them.

But despite the fact that the most recent revelations concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls suggest that both Jesus and John the Baptist might have belonged to the Essenes, it's unlikely that even John was a full member. His baptism was by total immersion in the river, whereas theirs was more a form of ritual washing. And the picture painted of him in the Gospels is more of a hermit figure than a community figure. He was seen by many as a kind of reincarnation of Elijah.

Why did John spend his youth as a hermit in the desert? Perhaps he needed to withdraw from the affluence of life in order to draw closer to God. A number of people today feel they can only serve God satisfactorily by withdrawing completely from the world. But God sent John back into the world, so perhaps he began to realize what his role was to be during those years he spent in the wilderness.

The wilderness was a place of deep significance for Israel. It was the place, all those centuries ago right at the beginning in the time of Moses, where the Israelites had met God. The place where God had led them, apparently for forty years, before bringing them into the promised land. The place where they learned about their role as a holy people. The place where they were prepared, in order to become God's chosen race.

The Israelites' encampment in the wilderness, guided by God 

The wilderness was a desert place, a place of appalling danger and deprivation, steep, wild, rocky, barren, almost devoid of vegetation, where to lose your way meant almost certain death. No one could survive in the wilderness unless perhaps they were protected and guided by God. The wilderness was a place of testing, and for the ancient Israelites, a place of failure.

Yet it continued to feature strongly in Israel's history as a place of preparation, a place where a person was stripped of all pretensions and found out what he was really like. Moses met God in the desert, as did Elijah. And Jesus himself spent the six weeks prior to the start of his ministry in the desert, being prepared for what was to come.

The desert is a place of withdrawal, a place of retreat, a place of preparation, a place of testing. It's not a comfortable place, but it is a place of reality. It's not a place of escape, but it is a place of experience. The contemplative Thomas Merton, described the desert as "the stripping down of the spiritual life to basics, to bare essentials, to the nakedness of spirit."

According to Kenneth Leech, in his book "True Prayer", the essential factor to grasp is that in the desert we live by trust and naked faith. All props, all non-essentials, all luxuries, are taken away. In the desert, we are deprived of those things which prevent us from seeing ourselves and reality in nakedness and simplicity, freed from disguises and false appearances. We are reduced to a simplicity of life and set free from attachments which obstruct our path. So we begin to see more clearly, perhaps too clearly for comfort. The desert will, therefore, be a place of pain and anguish, but it will also lead to greater clarity, greater insight, greater stillness of soul. In the desert, we can begin to move closer to the heart of things.

But although we live in the heart of rural Norfolk, we don't actually live in the desert. How is it possible for Christians in the middle of a busy and active modern life to enter the desert?

Some people go away for retreats or quiet days. Even two or three days spent in complete silence within the safe confines of a retreat house and grounds can be a pretty terrifying experience, where you’re brought face-to-face with your inner self. All those vague anxieties and worries and hurts and guilt which have been pushed down below the level of consciousness for years and years begin to surface, and that can be very painful. But if God’s light is to be allowed in even to the dark places of inner being, then at some point we need to face our inner selves.

If two or three days of silence is too much to contemplate, then a quiet day might be the answer. A quiet day allows time for thought and reflection and is like just dipping your toes into the water of wilderness.

For some people, it’s impossible even to arrange a quiet day. But everyone can arrange a quiet ten minutes per day. Just ten minutes of waiting in silence on God, saying nothing, simply sitting in his presence with no expectations, but offering yourself to him.

John the Baptist came to make the way ready for Jesus. His job was to make the rough places smooth, to make the paths straight, to iron out the difficulties and the hills and the hummocks.

If we wish to prepare ourselves this Advent for the coming of Jesus at Christmas, then we need to find some means of spending some time in the wilderness, even if it's just ten minutes per day in God's presence.

We may not succeed in making rough places smooth or paths straight or in ironing out any difficulties at all, but even John the Baptist wasn’t particularly successful in his mission. Although a good many people flocked to hear John, Jesus still had to climb huge mountains of opposition, and eventually died in the attempt.

But the wilderness is not about success, it’s about failure. For it's in failure that we discover God, and it’s through failure that he is able to reach us. As St. Paul put it, God's strength is made perfect in our weakness.

So if you can, get yourself into the wilderness by some means or other this Advent, and learn how to fail. Allow yourself to be stripped of all your comfortable defenses and take the risk of coming face to face with God. And that way you'll be ready as never before to receive your God this Christmas.