COPING IN THE WILDERNESS
A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Text: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? (Matthew 11:7)
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We’ve been
keeping you up to date with our friend Nancy.
You’ll remember that awhile ago she was diagnosed with breast
cancer. Shortly after the surgery, they
found the cancer had spread to her liver.
She received the chemotherapy treatments necessary to topple that
disease only to find out lately that the cancer has spread to her brain. But that’s not the news you’d be interested
in. What is newsworthy is the fact that
throughout what could be described as her wilderness experience
Not only that but whatever procedure she has had to endure throughout her ordeal she has heard from God in direct and indirect ways as to how she should handle it. Her husband Butch, rather than being cynical about the whole thing, has found comfort in the fact that Nancy’s not only in the wilderness with some pretty formidable company, but she has been able throughout the journey to comfort all those amongst her family and friends who’s walking along with her. Everyone with whom she’s come in contact is amazed, astonished, and yet not really surprised that she’s found such companionship to accompany her.
All of which begs the question we face with J Bap, or John the Baptist, and Jesus this morning, which is: who’s to say that the wilderness experiences we face in life are not really occasions to walk with the living God in ways we’d never experienced nor would expect to experience otherwise? We enter our text with John spending time in prison. Seemingly he’s been critical of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, who John’s rebuked for marrying Herodias, Herod’s half-niece, which Jewish Law said was a “no-no.” John’s gotten wind in prison of the success Jesus has been having out in the field and wants to find out first-hand if he’s to be taken seriously or not.
In the course of his answer Jesus refers John right back to the prophecy of Isaiah, which pretty much lays out the fact that, yes, there are going to be things going on in the wilderness that occasion the answer. Yes, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing…Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”
Barbara Brown Taylor recounts two years ago when her father lay dying at the Hospice of Atlanta. “I rode there in the ambulance with him, past yards full of frostbitten grass and plastic snowmen. It was 12 days before Christmas…The driver got lost twice, and I said things to him that I regret. Inside the hospice, I walked by my father’s stretcher past the nurses’ station, where cartons of Christmas cookies lay open on the counter. No one was moving fast enough for me. There was not nearly enough noise, given the gravity of the situation. Everyone but me seemed to know that death was no emergency.
“Still able to speak, my father never asked where he was. The sight of my face seemed enough for him, so I stayed that night in his small, quiet room, with moonlight seeping through the drapes. Every time he made a sorrowful noise, I got up to see what I could do. Every time the nurses turned him over, I petted him back to sleep. Because there was no clock in my heart, I never tired of rising. When my family came the next morning to relieve me, I discovered that I did not want to go.
“At first I thought I did not want to leave my father, for fear that he would die while I was gone, but after 15 minutes in holiday traffic I knew it was more than that. I did not want to leave the state of grace inside that room, where I had only one thing to do and not a doubt in the world that it was the only thing worth doing. I did not want to leave that place of the deeply real, where my father and I were both in labor. I did not want to be with anyone but him, my family and the nurses who cared for him so tenderly, because there was no pretense among us, no need to chat, lie or glitter.
“Over the days that followed, I did what holiday chores I could at a nearby mall. Standing in line behind shoppers yelling into cell phones or watching them struggle through doors with too many bags, I began to feel sorry for people who did not have a hospice room to go back to. Who could not benefit from such a sanctuary, where there was no sound for hours but two people breathing? Where else could one find the time to notice that the morning sun was more lemon-colored, while the afternoon sun had more honey in it? In what other economy could a sip of water make everything better for another couple of hours, or a fresh shirt be all one really needed?
“When my
father died three days before Christmas, I was there with him in that room that
had become my
All of us, at some time or another, are going to go through our wilderness experience. Jesus did it at the beginning of his ministry and set forth for all of us an example of what it is to be tested and how, if we put our trust in God, there will be wonderful surprises. J Bap, in his questions to Jesus, afforded the Messiah a teaching moment, when Jesus could remind all of us of Isaiah’s prophecy. Those wilderness occasions will oftentimes be times when the “waters shall break forth…and the burning sand shall become a pool...and a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way.”
Recently Nancy found out her daughter-in-law also has breast cancer. As her husband went out to jog and do his own meditations, she turned once again to God and had a conversation with him. Through her own experience she asked God to help her to help her daughter-in-law through this ordeal. Overwhelmingly, the thoughts of “love and joy” came to her during her prayer time. Stronger and stronger was the realization that was what she was to focus on. When she picked up one of her spiritual books, it opened to a page where the last paragraph spoke about “love and joy.”
All of us
have our wilderness times. As people of
faith we must never forget that we are not alone. When things just seem to be getting worse
from an already bad situation, God is there to give us the strength and courage
we need. God shows the way if only we
are open and willing to listen. Remember
whenever you walk in the wilderness “a highway shall be there, and it shall be
called the
Thanks be to God,
Amen