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December 7, 2008
Isaiah 40:1-11Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
Out of the Wilderness
In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. A voice cries out, “in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.” The voice of the one who cries in the wilderness, “prepare ye the way of the Lord.” In the wilderness. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill be made low. In the wilderness. The uneven ground shall become level. The rough places plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed there in the wilderness. In the wilderness.
There is quite a lot of wilderness in the bible. Moses tended his flock in the wilderness. And when he had led the people of Israel out of Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. That’s a lot of wilderness. When the people complained to Moses and to God, when they were at their wit’s end and thinking that life in Egypt would have been better than all this, the refrain, the question, the cry? “Did you bring us out into this wilderness to die?”
Way before Moses, when Abraham and Sarah cast out Hagar, when Hagar was shunned and sent away because of her fertility and Sarah’s jealousy, the angel of the Lord found Hagar out in the wilderness. Ishmael, the son of Hagar and Abraham, he lived in the wilderness. He grew up in the wilderness. Before David became king, when Saul was in pursuit and looking for David every day, David was hiding in the wilderness. When the prophet Elijah was running for his life, trying to keep away from Queen Jezebel, he went about a day’s journey by himself out into the wildness and settled under a broom tree. “I have had enough now, Lord.” That’s what he said to God there in the wilderness. And after Elijah went up to Mt Horeb, when the Lord was about to pass by, and the Lord was not in the earthquake, or the fire, or the wind, when the Lord came to Elijah at Mt Horeb in the still, small voice, the Lord told Elijah to go, to head back to the wilderness.
John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness. He came preaching, proclaiming, baptizing in the wilderness. Jesus was sent by the Spirit of God to be tempted by the devil. He was sent out into the wilderness. The forty days of fasting, all those temptations; “turn these stones into bread”, “throw yourself down from this pinnacle”, “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor I will give you if you fall and down and worship me”, all that happened in the wilderness. In the book of Acts, when Philip came upon the Ethiopian eunuch, when Philip interpreted the scripture and proclaimed the good news about Jesus, when Philip baptized him and he went on his way rejoicing, that all happened on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. It was, as it says in scripture, “a wilderness road.”
In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. The bible is full of wilderness. The land of the bible, is full of desert. That road from Jerusalem south to Gaza, it would be a road through the desert. To head south from Jerusalem, toward Gaza, toward Sinai, toward Masada and Qumran, toward the Dead Sea, it is desert. The land of the bible is full of desert. To see it for the first time, to experience it, to take it all in, there in that part of the world, it is an experience of the desert. Wilderness is not what first comes to mind. Certainly if the term “wilderness” conjures up forest, and dense growth, and mountains, and tree lines, and vegetation, and lots of shade, and towering pines, and narrow pathways, if that’s what pops on the imagination’s screen when you type in “wilderness”, then when you find yourself wandering somewhere south of Jerusalem, your first thought will be desert.
In the Hebrew language, the word for wilderness here, in the wilderness prepare, the word is just as often translated as desert (midbar). However, a different Hebrew word is used in the second half of the verse; “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (araba). That word for desert implies a desert plateau or a desert plain, as opposed to a mountainous desert. One tradition of rabbinic interpretation suggests that the wilderness is a more general term, desert here, desert anywhere. When the text then refers to making straight in the desert and a different word is used, it’s not just a reference to landscape, but it is a specific term, the regional term, a less common term, the term that makes reference to the area south of Jerusalem, the region of the Negeb. “Make straight in this desert, right here, here in this desert place, make straight a highway for our God.” One verse, two Hebrew words for desert, for wilderness. As best as I can tell, in the New Testament Greek, there is one word for wilderness and desert, and it is most often translated just as “wilderness.”
Hebrew. Greek. Word studies in the ancient languages. Wilderness-desert. Desert-wilderness. Here’s why it’s important. Wilderness in the bible is not just about landscape, or terrain, or geographic reference. The parsing of the original language offers little clarification on climate or land description. The bible is full of wilderness and the land of the bible is full of desert. Wilderness is desert and desert is wilderness. It’s a given. It’s a no brainer. So when the words are used and the words are interchangeable, and the landscape in the world of the bible is just sort of assumed, then what else is being communicated, what else is implied, what other meaning ought not to be lost when the reader comes upon “the wilderness”? In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord.
How about uninhabited? Desolate. Barren. A region where no other human beings are to be found. The wilderness. Hagar and Ishmael were sent away, shunned, sent off by themselves, sent to the wilderness. Moses was alone when called by God. Moses and the people of Israel, one nation wandering by itself a part from the world. Elijah in the wilderness thinking he is the only one left. John the Baptist appeared where there was no on else to preach, prepare, and baptize. He was the one. The conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch; his heart transformed by nothing other than the Spirit of the Living God. There at the end of Acts 8, as the story comes to a conclusion, Philip is mysteriously snatched away. Philip suddenly appears somewhere else, because the eunuch’s encounter on the wilderness road was ultimately between him and God. Jesus and his solitary experience of temptation. All in the wilderness. All of it in the wilderness. Along a wilderness road. A solitary place. And isolated existence. Uninhabited. Desolate. Just you and God. In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.
Not too long ago I had a conversation with someone who has to travel all the time for work. Being a pastor, I was trying to show some empathy, lamenting how grueling it must be, all that travel, Airports. Lines. Waiting. Crowds. Baggage. Long flights. Customs. You name it, it must take it toll. That’s what I was trying to communicate. His response took me off guard. He talked about the unrelenting busyness of the day to day and the emails and the phone calls and the meetings. “At least when I travel” he said, “I get to be alone for awhile.” I found myself pondering an image of being surrounded by hundreds of people, even thousands, in a place like an airport, and yet being alone.
It’s not always bad when its just you. Just you and God. When the wilderness comes. It can come at the most unexpected of times, The least expected of places. Yes, a long walk on the beach. A morning hike on a mountain path. A three hour drive in the car by yourself. Or in a room like this one with a couple hundred folks. On a train heading for the city. At a holiday meal surrounded by family. Over dinner with the one you love. In a lecture hall on campus. At Montreat with 900 of your newest friends. One of those wilderness moments when its just you and God; a heart freshly filled with God’s peace, eyes that now can see God’s presence, ears that hear anew of God’s love, lips now shaped for prayer and praise, a soul and spirit and being once again formed to be filled by God and God alone.
I have more than once apologized to someone who found themselves here in the sanctuary on a Sunday morning all alone; for them, unfriendly, isolating, cold. It was as if they were the only ones in the room. This fellowship we share is so fragile. But I have also, more than once, talked to someone who told me of an experience here in worship, something so vivid, so real that they had to tell someone. It was like they were the only one in the room. Them and God; and a sense of God’s presence, a palpable experience of God’s Spirit, an almost indescribable notion of God’s nudging, a rare but real encounter with tingle or tears or just an assurance deep within, just you and God, and God finding a way to convince you again of God’s love. “You are mine. I am with you always. I named you. I embrace you. I will not leave you. I forgive you. Where I am, you will be, forever.” Being a pastor, I get to hear about the wilderness road, again and again.
Advent wilderness. Sometime here. Sometimes out there. The most unexpected places. The least expected times. When the Spirit of God blows into your life and mine, and for just a moment, it is all you and all God. It is only you and only God. It’s not just part of the routine of the week, or what you’ve always done, or how you were raised. It’s not just the expectations of your family, or in order to please someone else, or to go through the motions as role model for your child. It’s not piety and superstition rolled into one. It’s not just the intellectual stimulation for the week, or the place where your family can learn to sing, or where you can meet folks who share your passion for an issue or a concern of justice. It’s not about pumping meaning into the endless treadmill of the holiday celebration and preparation….when the wilderness comes its you and God and no one, nothing else. It’s an uninhabited, isolating encounter with the living God.
The bible is full of wilderness. Our lives, maybe not so much. At least wilderness as I have described it this morning. But this Advent wilderness, it’s not a season. I have to tell you, I’ve seen it, I’ve heard it. It is the faithful, lifegiving, heart filling, ever moving toward us, God is present, come Lord Jesus, Spirit of the Living God.
A voice cries out, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
© 2008, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
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