The Gospel passage we will read this Sunday at Sawyer Memorial is Matthew 4:1-11. It describes the testing/temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Because that passage is so fresh in my mind, I immediately noticed how often the word "wilderness" is used in Deuteronomy 2, part of our reading for March 8. So, today I have been thinking about time in the wilderness not only for Israel and Jesus, but also for us and our churches. It seems that we sometimes enter the wilderness through our own choosing...maybe a season of the church year like Lent encourages us to examine our relationship with God. And sometimes, the wilderness seems to be forced upon us...trouble in our families, medical issues, a job loss or something equally devastating. Being lost in the wilderness can be uncomfortable and threatening; in fact, the words "fear and trembling" come to my mind.
One of my seminary professors talked about the wilderness wanderings of Israel as their 40-year journey of learning how to live with God, how to worship God, and how to be God's chosen people. What if we accepted our "wildernesses" in the same manner? Could it be that, through the experience, we come to a better understanding of who we are? of who God wants us to be and what God wants us to do?
A final thought...my dad always told us never to go into the woods without a compass. Hmmm...I think there's a sermon here!
The notion of wilderness has been permeating my thinking the last week or so. It has been in the form of a question "Where are the wilderness areas in my life?" So that has become my question of pondering for lent for me this year. Where in my life am I letting "the bareness of the Wilderness(our culture and its promises) slip into my thinking undetected? From my experience in the past of care taking the exhaustion factor even with the intent of good self care was a wilderness. In that wilderness, I learned lessons of trusting God to provide, because I could not
ReplyDeletestop what was going on for my loved one. I often felt like Elijah under the broom
tree. Today as I am aging, there is again a sense of wilderness--stuff happens to us and I find myself turning to Christ and celebrating that he is with us through the HOly Spirit no matter what. Wilderness is a place where we can learn and experience the closeness that comes when we are quietly in relationship with Christ. Wilderness has significant less noise and sounds from our culture today. Wilderness seems to me to becoming a friend even though it is far from comfortable and cozy. May God catch our hearts and bring them closer to Him in our wilderness experiences. Karen Miller
Karen...I enjoyed reading your thoughts here. They are so true for many of us. Your last four sentences make me think that, to make sense of a wilderness experience, we must be willing to be led, willing to be instructed. For me, arriving at "willingness" is sometimes part of the lesson...I must let "willfulness" go.
DeleteYes, Wilderness is not always our enemy. It is not a place I would choose to live in but I often choose to visit wilderness regions to walk in and explore. They are places without so many distractions where I can slow down, think and listen out for God. But also in my life looking back, the wilderness times were times in which growth happened for me although it did not seem so at the time as I was struggling in the wilderness.
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