Wilderness. –
It is a word that evokes something extraordinary in us. There is a sense of both adventure and danger. The wilderness is untamed and demands respect. Wilderness also describes the hard or wandering times of life, times that are exceptionally barren, uncomfortable, challenging, or difficult to navigate. All of us have experienced a wilderness at one point or another.
When you look through scripture, we encounter one wilderness story after another. In fact, it seems to be a place God uses to advance the story about redemption in the world. An Advent story, a story where Hope is Born. Think about it.
- Abraham is told (Gen 12) to pack up all he has (tents, family, animals, everything) and set out into the wilderness to the land God would show him on the way.
- Then, we learn that a nation of two million Hebrew people leave Egypt and journey into the wilderness for forty years before being allowed to enter the Promised Land.
- A thousand years later, Israel would be taken out of their land in exile into a Babylonian “wilderness”.
- Another 500 years passes and as Jesus is beginning his ministry, he spends 40 days in the Palestinian “wilderness” east of Jerusalem being tempted and forging a focus and purpose for the journey before him.
- Following that, the early church then steps into a counter cultural “wilderness” beginning in the Book of Acts as they learn to live and behave differently than the prevailing culture, a move which caused them great persecution and suffering.
“Wilderness” seasons flow one after another in Scripture. There is no magic wand that makes the wilderness disappear. And if our journey is through them, perhaps it is good to understand what happens in the wilderness and how we can journey through it in such a way as we all emerge on the other side and become more than when we started.
Wishing you all a blessed and hope filled Wilderness Advent.
Pastor Alan
What happens in the wilderness?
The short answer is – God forms us in the wilderness. Everything from our character, to our abilities, to creativity, to humility, to where we place our trust is formed in the wilderness. Sometimes God needs to undo things in us something better can emerge. Sometimes, we recognize the need to leave some things behind. Sometimes we realize the need to become something different or something more to journey better through the next season of life. God can use the wilderness to form good things within us if we open ourselves up to the possibility.
Union Congregational Church-Churchville, NY 