In the Wilderness

In the Wilderness
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
December 10, 2006--Advent II
Malachi 3:1-4, Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6

Malachi 3:1-4 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.

Philippians 1:3-11 I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ.
It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God's grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus.
And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.

Luke 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

I. BEGINNING

A couple years ago, I took my summer vacation in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. On one of the legs of the journey I drove from Québec City, Québec to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Isle. It was a long drive and most of the day was spent in the province of New Brunswick. The fastest way across the province was Highway 108 that went through the Red Rock wildlife refuge. The thing about highway 108 was that I think I saw a total of 4 cars on the entire trip. There were not a lot of people around and there was one building on the entire 90 mile expanse--it looked to be a motel about half way. I remember being grateful that it was daylight, that I had a full tank of gas, and that my car had been recently serviced. It would have been a terrible place to break down or run out of gas. Even if my cell phone had worked well in Canada, it wouldn't have found a signal at all.

The countryside was beautiful and the endless forests of pine were really something, but there is something unnerving about being in such an expanse of wilderness. It is at once wonderful and frightening. It's not just the isolation of it--it's the untamed nature of the place that is the most unsettling. While there were dirt roads on occasion that went off into the woods, they were the only signs of human civilization for miles.

The wilderness can be an intimidating thing.

II. WILDERNESS IN THE TEXT

The wilderness is the setting of our action tonight. Not quite the same kind of wilderness as they have there in New Brunswick, but no less a wilderness. It is the wilderness of Judea where John the Baptist begins his mission. It is where Jesus will come to be baptized. It is where Jesus will then spend his forty days of fasting before beginning his own ministry.

In effect, the wilderness will set the stage for the great drama that is about to unfold. We may think the gospel drama begins with the annunciation, but in many ways, it gets its real start in the wilderness.

He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'"

III. THE WILDERNESS: THE GREAT IN-BETWEEN

A. In-between Places

We think of wildernesses as those places where no one lives. Those great expanses between human settlements. Those great expanses on the road where there doesn't seem to be another person around for miles. Places where life itself is meant to be a challenge--like the Great Arabian desert, or the Sahara, or broad swaths of the Southwestern U.S., the lonely and wildwoods of the far north.

They are places where we are not meant to be. Whether desert, or forest, or tundra, or lava flow, or whatever, the wilderness evokes the image of a place where life is difficult, inhospitable. Where we are on our own, alone and without aid.

B. In-between Times

And wildernesses can be in-between times, too.

We are in an in-between time in the life of the Church right now. There are two such times each year: Advent and Lent (which, Alissa reminds us, rhyme --you'll have to figure out for yourselves the theological significance of that). But those times of year are seasons of preparation and anticipatio n. They are not the places we are journeying toward--they are the places before that. They are the in-betweens, the expanse between the destinations. Like highway 108 in New Brunswick. And like highway 108, they can go on seemingly forever and can feel lonely.

C. Our In-betweens

Especially when the wilderness we are talking about is one of the in-between times in our lives. The place between the already and the not-yet.

Our lives are full of such in-between times. And they are probably the most difficult times we go through.

Perhaps you're in that in-between time after a relationship has ended, but you haven't yet made peace with that. Perhaps you are mourning the loss of a loved one, and are in that in-between wilderness of grief before healing. Perhaps you have learned that the graduate school or the degree program you applied to is not available to you, and you are in the in-between of the expectations that were and the new plan that is yet to be. There are many ways we can find ourselves in the in-between wildernesses in our lives.

You go through a lot of in-between times in college. For the four years you are here are not really about getting an education. I know a lot of people think that. I know a lot of people view their educations as the product they come here to buy. But your college years aren't really about learning things--most of that stuff you'll forget. College is first and foremost about discovering who you are. For eighteen years you have everyone telling you who you were--parents, teachers, pastors, friends--and now you come here and figure out if it's really true.

And so you begin to learn new things. You develop different understandings of the world. You change your political views. You change your style of dress. Your hair. Your favorite music. You begin a process of exploration.

But then something frightening happens: you realize you weren't the person you were when you came here --and you don't yet know who the person is that you will become. You are in an in-between time. A time where you are neither what you were nor what you will become--and it can be greatly disconcerting. It can be scary to realize that you are in a wilderness time--no longer in the safe confines of where you were: home, familiar tradition, familiar belief, familiar people; but not yet arrived at a place where you are comfortable.

College is a time like that. And that experience happens to pretty much everyone--at least, it will if you do college right.

And it is a process that will continue. We will adopt and then lose particular beliefs or attitudes. We will change our jobs, our circumstances, the familiar comforts of our lives. We will transition from the old to the new and there will be times spent in-between the two. Our lives will always have times when we are at our place of origin or our eventual destination--but they are often spent at the places in-between.

IV. THE LAND OF HOPE AND PROMISE

A. Where God Works

In its Old Testament version in Isaiah, the quote about preparing the way of the Lord is usually rendered : "The voice of one crying: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." In the New Testament, it's usually presented as "A voice crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord'"--as it is here. This is probably done because the gospel writers associate this passage with John the Baptist and interpret the 'in the wilderness' as describing where the speaker is. And it certainly is--John is in the wilderness beyond the Jordan preaching and baptizing.

But when we look back on the Old Testament passages Luke quotes, we see that the focus is not only on the speaker as being in the wilderness, but upon the wilderness as the place where God will do God's saving action:

Isaiah 32.16: Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.

Isaiah 35 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God.

Isaiah 43 19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20 The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise.

The wilderness is that place where God will demonstrate wonders and fulfill the promises made from of old. When God's wonders will be seen, they will be seen first in the wilderness. In those barren places--those places in between--that we have all but given up hope on; there God's works will be made manifest. There will we see God at work.

It will be in the wilderness that the crocus shall blossom abundantly. There shall the glory of Lebanon--a forested country--be seen. There shall rivers appear, that God's people may drink. There shall the way of the Lord be made, a highway for our God.

B. Encountering God

But there is something else at work here as well. The passage from Luke says, "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius ... the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness."

That is, John received a word from God in the wilderness. Not in the comfortable streets of his home village. Not in the routine of the safe and the familiar. Not in any place resembling security. In the wilderness, where there is neither safety nor security. Where life is hard. Where one often feels utterly alone. That is where John received a word from God. That is where John encounters God.

C. Promise

Perhaps we are a little too far removed from it. Perhaps our Jewish brothers and sisters might have a keener sense of this, but the imagery of the wilderness is meant to be a hopeful image. For the wilderness is a place we've been before. It is supposed to remind us of the Exodus, of a sojourn in the wilderness, that while it can be long--40 years for the Children of Israel--is not forever. For it is a land on the way. It is a land of promise. The wilderness is first and foremost a land of promise on the way to the Promised Land.

It is a land in which we reflect on the mighty deliverance God has worked for us in the past and look forward to the fulfillment of the promise in the future. It is an in-between place, to be sure. But it is in-between some wondrous points.

V. END

We often spend our lives in the in-between places in the in-between times. It can feel so lonely. We can feel so lost, as though we've been traveling a long highway for so long and haven't seen anyone else for miles.

Some of you may be in a wilderness place right now. Some of you may be feeling the anxiety of being stuck between the already and the not yet. Some of you may be feeling cut-off from the place you were, but not yet safely arrived at the place you are headed for. And it's scary.

But there is also hope.

John the Baptist is not the only one who encounters God in the wilderness. In many ways, it is where we most truly encounter God is not when we're feeling safe and secure, but when we're feeling vulnerable. When we're feeling out of sorts and we are open to the possibilities. That is when God can speak to us. If you are feeling that you're in one of those wilderness places, you are in precisely the place where you can encounter God free of all the expectations and assumptions of the safe places. The God encountered in the wilderness is full of wonder and mystery--the God Moses encounters at the Burning Bush, the God who goes by a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, the God whose awesome glory surrounds Sinai, and whose grace and love bring forth springs from the desert. A God not contained by temples or cathedrals. A God who is free and comes to us where we are.

We all have those wilderness times --even as communities we can have in-between times. As a people, we have all been at one time or another in such a time. What that means is that for those of us who at a particular time may be going through such an experience, you go through it not alone, but with a community who goes through it with you. You are surrounded in love by others who have experienced what you are experiencing, who are there to lend an ear, a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand.

For the Israelites are not the only people to sojourn in the wilderness between deliverance and the Promised Land. We, too, can as a community look back to the deliverance we have received--when the Resurrection showed us that God had not abandoned us but loved us still--and look forward to the promise we await: a world of peace, a world of justice, a world were we are finally in true communion with God and one another. This is the hope that forms us as a people, the hope we share with one another in fellowship and community, and the hope we share with the world in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.

For in many ways, we all sojourn in the wilderness. We all are in that land between the already and the not-yet. But it is not a hopeless place--it is rather a place of great wonder, a place of remembrance, and of hope. A hope that we proclaim in Advent--one of the in-between times--and always.

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*In the Wilderness* Rev. Mark Schaefer Kay Spiritual Life Center December 10, 2006--Advent II Malachi 3:1-4, Philippians 1:3-11; Luke 3:1-6 Malachi 3:1-4 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight--indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years. Philippians 1:3-11 I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now. I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ. It is right for me to think this way about all of you, because you hold me in your heart, for all of you share in God's grace with me, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. For God is my witness, how I long for all of you with the compassion of Christ Jesus. And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. Luke 3:1-6 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" I. BEGINNING A couple years ago, I took my summer vacation in the Maritime Provinces of Canada. On one of the legs of the journey I drove from Québec City, Québec to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Isle. It was a long drive and most of the day was spent in the province of New Brunswick. The fastest way across the province was Highway 108 that went through the Red Rock wildlife refuge. The thing about highway 108 was that I think I saw a total of 4 cars on the entire trip. There were not a lot of people around and there was one building on the entire 90 mile expanse--it looked to be a motel about half way. I remember being grateful that it was daylight, that I had a full tank of gas, and that my car had been recently serviced. It would have been a terrible place to break down or run out of gas. Even if my cell phone had worked well in Canada, it wouldn't have found a signal at all. The countryside was beautiful and the endless forests of pine were really something, but there is something unnerving about being in such an expanse of wilderness. It is at once wonderful and frightening. It's not just the isolation of it--it's the untamed nature of the place that is the most unsettling. While there were dirt roads on occasion that went off into the woods, they were the only signs of human civilization for miles. The wilderness can be an intimidating thing. II. WILDERNESS IN THE TEXT The wilderness is the setting of our action tonight. Not quite the same kind of wilderness as they have there in New Brunswick, but no less a wilderness. It is the wilderness of Judea where John the Baptist begins his mission. It is where Jesus will come to be baptized. It is where Jesus will then spend his forty days of fasting before beginning his own ministry. In effect, the wilderness will set the stage for the great drama that is about to unfold. We may think the gospel drama begins with the annunciation, but in many ways, it gets its real start in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'" III. THE WILDERNESS: THE GREAT IN-BETWEEN A. In-between Places We think of wildernesses as those places where no one lives. Those great expanses between human settlements. Those great expanses on the road where there doesn't seem to be another person around for miles. Places where life itself is meant to be a challenge--like the Great Arabian desert, or the Sahara, or broad swaths of the Southwestern U.S., the lonely and wildwoods of the far north. They are places where we are not meant to be. Whether desert, or forest, or tundra, or lava flow, or whatever, the wilderness evokes the image of a place where life is difficult, inhospitable. Where we are on our own, alone and without aid. B. In-between Times And wildernesses can be in-between times, too. We are in an in-between time in the life of the Church right now. There are two such times each year: Advent and Lent (which, Alissa reminds us, rhyme --you'll have to figure out for yourselves the theological significance of that). But those times of year are seasons of preparation and anticipatio n. They are not the places we are journeying toward--they are the places before that. They are the in-betweens, the expanse between the destinations. Like highway 108 in New Brunswick. And like highway 108, they can go on seemingly forever and can feel lonely. C. Our In-betweens Especially when the wilderness we are talking about is one of the in-between times in our lives. The place between the already and the not-yet. Our lives are full of such in-between times. And they are probably the most difficult times we go through. Perhaps you're in that in-between time after a relationship has ended, but you haven't yet made peace with that. Perhaps you are mourning the loss of a loved one, and are in that in-between wilderness of grief before healing. Perhaps you have learned that the graduate school or the degree program you applied to is not available to you, and you are in the in-between of the expectations that were and the new plan that is yet to be. There are many ways we can find ourselves in the in-between wildernesses in our lives. You go through a lot of in-between times in college. For the four years you are here are not really about getting an education. I know a lot of people think that. I know a lot of people view their educations as the product they come here to buy. But your college years aren't really about learning things--most of that stuff you'll forget. College is first and foremost about discovering who you are. For eighteen years you have everyone telling you who you were--parents, teachers, pastors, friends--and now you come here and figure out if it's really true. And so you begin to learn new things. You develop different understandings of the world. You change your political views. You change your style of dress. Your hair. Your favorite music. You begin a process of exploration. But then something frightening happens: you realize you weren't the person you were when you came here --and you don't yet know who the person is that you will become. You are in an in-between time. A time where you are neither what you were nor what you will become--and it can be greatly disconcerting. It can be scary to realize that you are in a wilderness time--no longer in the safe confines of where you were: home, familiar tradition, familiar belief, familiar people; but not yet arrived at a place where you are comfortable. College is a time like that. And that experience happens to pretty much everyone--at least, it will if you do college right. And it is a process that will continue. We will adopt and then lose particular beliefs or attitudes. We will change our jobs, our circumstances, the familiar comforts of our lives. We will transition from the old to the new and there will be times spent in-between the two. Our lives will always have times when we are at our place of origin or our eventual destination--but they are often spent at the places in-between. IV. THE LAND OF HOPE AND PROMISE A. Where God Works In its Old Testament version in Isaiah, the quote about preparing the way of the Lord is usually rendered : "The voice of one crying: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God." In the New Testament, it's usually presented as "A voice crying in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord'"--as it is here. This is probably done because the gospel writers associate this passage with John the Baptist and interpret the 'in the wilderness' as describing where the speaker is. And it certainly is--John is in the wilderness beyond the Jordan preaching and baptizing. But when we look back on the Old Testament passages Luke quotes, we see that the focus is not only on the speaker as being in the wilderness, but upon the wilderness as the place where God will do God's saving action: Isaiah 32.16: Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. Isaiah 35 The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus 2 it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Isaiah 43 19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20 The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. The wilderness is that place where God will demonstrate wonders and fulfill the promises made from of old. When God's wonders will be seen, they will be seen first in the wilderness. In those barren places--those places in between--that we have all but given up hope on; there God's works will be made manifest. There will we see God at work. It will be in the wilderness that the crocus shall blossom abundantly. There shall the glory of Lebanon--a forested country--be seen. There shall rivers appear, that God's people may drink. There shall the way of the Lord be made, a highway for our God. B. Encountering God But there is something else at work here as well. The passage from Luke says, "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius ... the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness." That is, John received a word from God in the wilderness. Not in the comfortable streets of his home village. Not in the routine of the safe and the familiar. Not in any place resembling security. In the wilderness, where there is neither safety nor security. Where life is hard. Where one often feels utterly alone. That is where John received a word from God. That is where John encounters God. C. Promise Perhaps we are a little too far removed from it. Perhaps our Jewish brothers and sisters might have a keener sense of this, but the imagery of the wilderness is meant to be a hopeful image. For the wilderness is a place we've been before. It is supposed to remind us of the Exodus, of a sojourn in the wilderness, that while it can be long--40 years for the Children of Israel--is not forever. For it is a land on the way. It is a land of promise. The wilderness is first and foremost a land of promise on the way to the Promised Land. It is a land in which we reflect on the mighty deliverance God has worked for us in the past and look forward to the fulfillment of the promise in the future. It is an in-between place, to be sure. But it is in-between some wondrous points. V. END We often spend our lives in the in-between places in the in-between times. It can feel so lonely. We can feel so lost, as though we've been traveling a long highway for so long and haven't seen anyone else for miles. Some of you may be in a wilderness place right now. Some of you may be feeling the anxiety of being stuck between the already and the not yet. Some of you may be feeling cut-off from the place you were, but not yet safely arrived at the place you are headed for. And it's scary. But there is also hope. John the Baptist is not the only one who encounters God in the wilderness. In many ways, it is where we most truly encounter God is not when we're feeling safe and secure, but when we're feeling vulnerable. When we're feeling out of sorts and we are open to the possibilities. That is when God can speak to us. If you are feeling that you're in one of those wilderness places, you are in precisely the place where you can encounter God free of all the expectations and assumptions of the safe places. The God encountered in the wilderness is full of wonder and mystery--the God Moses encounters at the Burning Bush, the God who goes by a pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night, the God whose awesome glory surrounds Sinai, and whose grace and love bring forth springs from the desert. A God not contained by temples or cathedrals. A God who is free and comes to us where we are. We all have those wilderness times --even as communities we can have in-between times. As a people, we have all been at one time or another in such a time. What that means is that for those of us who at a particular time may be going through such an experience, you go through it not alone, but with a community who goes through it with you. You are surrounded in love by others who have experienced what you are experiencing, who are there to lend an ear, a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand. For the Israelites are not the only people to sojourn in the wilderness between deliverance and the Promised Land. We, too, can as a community look back to the deliverance we have received--when the Resurrection showed us that God had not abandoned us but loved us still--and look forward to the promise we await: a world of peace, a world of justice, a world were we are finally in true communion with God and one another. This is the hope that forms us as a people, the hope we share with one another in fellowship and community, and the hope we share with the world in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ. For in many ways, we all sojourn in the wilderness. We all are in that land between the already and the not-yet. But it is not a hopeless place--it is rather a place of great wonder, a place of remembrance, and of hope. A hope that we proclaim in Advent--one of the in-between times--and always. Back to Sermons page Back to AU UMC Home Copyright © 2006. Mark A. Schaefer. No part of this text may be reproduced or otherwise disseminated without the express written consent of the author.

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