In the Wilderness

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  So begins Mark’s gospel, which we will be reading all during this year.  It is an abrupt beginning—a far cry from the other three gospels.  Matthew and Luke give us stories about Jesus’ birth and infancy, John begins with a prologue about Jesus as the Word of God who was present at creation.   But Mark just plunges in with “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” And before you know it, you are in the wilderness with John the Baptist, who is baptizing people in the Jordan in preparation for the One who is coming. 

But let’s pause for a moment to take a closer look at Mark’s opening sentence.  The way that books of the Bible begin and end are always revealing—they always give you clues to  understanding the book. 

The beginning—what other book in the Bible has the word “beginning” in the first sentence?  Genesis...”In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth...”  There are other links to Genesis in this passage as well—the references to the Spirit and the water.  John baptizes with water, but Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit.   In the beginning God’s Spirit hovered over the waters and brought order out of chaos.  Now, in this new beginning, the God who created the world is about to redeem it.   God is sending Jesus Christ who will bring God’s Spirit into the world and heal its brokenness. 

The wilderness setting of this scene links the gospel to another book of Scripture:  Exodus.    The wilderness is where the people of Israel found themselves after fleeing slavery in Egypt.  They wandered there for years before finally arriving at the promised land.  The wilderness was a place of danger and insecurity, where you could die of hunger or thirst; you could get lost; you could get eaten by wild animals.  Israel suffered in the wilderness, and complained frequently to God.  But afterwards, they remembered it as the place where God tenderly cared for them.  God gave them water to drink, manna to eat, and led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  The wilderness was a tough time, but it was where they experienced their deepest intimacy with God.  And the wilderness is where Isaiah prophesied that God would come to comfort his people.

So it makes sense that John the Baptist would head out to the wilderness to prepare for God’s coming.  And people followed him out there in droves to hear him preach about repentance and God’s forgiveness, and to be baptized in the Jordan River.  They were preparing their hearts for God to come.

We are in a season of preparation as well.  Mark’s gospel calls on us to enter into the wilderness and listen to the voice crying out there, and prepare our hearts for God to come.

Sometimes our lives take us to the wilderness whether we want to go or not.  I’m talking about those periods of loss and disruption that come to all of us in different forms at one time or another.  We lose someone we love, we lose our job, we move, our kids grow up and leave home.  One way of life dies and it takes a while until a new way of being comes into focus.  That in-between time is the wilderness.  It is the place of uncertainty and insecurity.  It’s not a comfortable place to be, but being there spurs us to turn to God and listen more intently for God’s voice.  The literal meaning of repentance is to turn again—in other words, to turn once more to God.  If we keep our focus on God while we’re in the wilderness, God will begin to show us new possibilities and lead us to new life.  Sometimes we look back at the wilderness times of our lives and are astonished to realize that we were closer to God than at any other time in our lives.

I was at Holy Cross monastery the other day, and I asked one of the monks about the brothers in Santa Barbara whose monastery burned down a few weeks ago in the forest fires.  He expressed that sense of being in the wilderness.  An old way of life has gone—the monks are confused and uncertain.  But because of their faith, they are also experiencing a sense of being wide open to a new future.  They are beginning to open themselves to new possibilities, new ways of serving God and living out their ministry.  Even though they are not yet clear about what direction God is calling them to go, they may in the end remember this as a time when God was very close to them, guiding them and sustaining them in their wilderness.

Our country and to some extent, the whole world, is in an in-between place as well.  The financial crisis signals the end of easy credit and piling up debt by living beyond our means.   The environmental crisis is forcing us to rethink the way we use the world’s resources and question the amount of energy we use.  One way of life is drawing to an end, and it is not yet clear what will take its place.  It is not a comfortable place to be—there is much confusion and insecurity and outright suffering.  But in the midst of all that, there is a sense of new possibilities—creative ways of addressing the problems that challenge us.

But it isn’t always a crisis that takes us to the wilderness.  We can choose to enter the wilderness in the sense of stepping back from our familiar daily lives and opening ourselves to God’s call.   To be a person of faith is to be radically open to change, to be willing to be shaken loose from our habitual ways of thinking and acting.  We are all works in progress—God is not finished with us yet.  So God invites us to leave behind the safe and familiar and open ourselves to the new thing God is doing.  God invites us to enter the wilderness of an unknown future and trust God to guide us and sustain us.   

 That is what John the Baptist did when he went out to the desert to preach and baptize.  When people followed him out there, they stepped out of the comfort zone and headed out into the wide open spaces to look for God.  And God came to them in a way they could never have predicted—in the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, who came to heal and reconcile. 

Advent invites us to repent in the sense of refocusing our attention on God.  When we keep our eyes on God, we are not as afraid of change because God is our stability.  It is easier to let go of routine and habit, and open ourselves to God’s creative and transforming love.  By sitting loose to the way life is, we make room for the way life could be.  Because the truth is, we are always living in an in-between time, whether or not we recognize it as a “crisis.”  God has begun the work of redemption, but it is not finished yet.  We have experienced the peace of God that passes all understanding, but God’s peace does not yet reign in the world or in our hearts.  We have been given a glimpse of all of God’s people reconciled and gathered around a single table, living in loving intimacy with God.  But we know our own brokenness and the brokenness of the world, and we long for healing.  We know Christ, but we have not yet become Christ. 

Dear friends, let us leave behind the well beaten path and follow John the Baptist into the wilderness.  Let us turn again to God, who is waiting to transform us and renew us.  Let us open our hearts to the love that is our redemption.     

And so we wait for God to act.