THE WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE

A sermon by the Rev. Dr. Marie Sheldon

Harundale Presbyterian Church

Glen Burnie, Maryland

December 8, 2002

Text: “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”

Scripture Passage: Isaiah 40: 1-11

In the words of the prophet Isaiah: “A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” The writer of the gospel of Mark paraphrases the prophet’s words: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.’”

The writers of the Bible used the word “wilderness” in more than a geographical sense. The prophet Isaiah used it when his people were in Babylonian exile – separated from their land, their families, from all they knew that was familiar. Mark used it to describe his people – a people under Roman rule who were waiting for a Messiah to save them from foreign tyranny. For ancient thinkers, the word wilderness meant disorder and chaos; it meant pain, and sorrow, and loneliness.

The wilderness experience was not limited to those who lived through the Babylonian Exile or first-century Roman domination. Even though most of us live somewhere in Maryland, we can have our own wilderness experience. The death of someone we love can put us there. So does the havoc wreaked by divorce. Mental changes like Alzheimer’s disease create the wilderness pallor around the one afflicted and those who care for the afflicted one. Emotional ups and downs – the ones that make us feel out of control – unable to moderate our behavior, put us in a wilderness all our own. These are just a few wilderness experiences. We could add financial fears, moving, addictions, job loss to the list. I’m sure you have a wilderness list of your own.

None of us can escape the wilderness. Biblical theologians often teach that we can encounter God in our personal wilderness, but I believe that will happen only if we understand the wilderness experience – considering both its pitfalls and its opportunities.

One of the pitfalls we encounter in whatever wilderness we find ourselves is confusion. We are indecisive about what to do. Decisions seem overwhelming. We’re not sure what to think, and we question the feelings we’re having. Some of that is due to the mixed messages we receive from society. Take, for example, the challenge of trying to keep Christ in Christmas. We are so plagued by the commercialism of it all that Advent becomes a wilderness of its own making – the Baltimore Sun is almost too heavy to carry because it’s stuffed with flyers prompting us to buy unnecessary stuff; there are too many cards to write, too many bills to pay for too many gifts, too many things to do. Americans, in fact, have exported their pre-Christmas wilderness abroad. I read about a display in a large Japanese department store that featured Santa Claus holding the Baby Jesus behind a sleigh that the seven dwarfs were pulling. No wonder there was confusion!

In addition to feeling confused when we’re in our wilderness, we also tend to fantasize when we’re there – and most of those fantasies are negative. Instead of listening for the voice of hope that God so often sends us, we look at our life as hopeless – comparing it to the apparently “perfect” lives other people have. This is especially true at holiday times when Hallmark brings tears to our eyes with TV commercials featuring flawless families – families that never deal with a drunk relative, with multiple divorces – families that never fight over the remote or how money is going to be spent. We’ll never hear what God has to say to us if we’re so busy envying what we think someone else has.

Isolation is another wilderness pitfall. When we’re hurting, many of us tend to go inward – like a wounded animal. We pull back from people – even though those very people may well be the messengers God is sending to heal us. The now-famous film director Steven Spielberg, tells of the wilderness experience he went through as a young person. He was a lone Jewish boy in the Christian neighborhood in which he grew up in San Jose, California. Spielberg remembers “the embarrassment and self-consciousness of having the darkest house on the block during Christmas.” Things got worse in high school. Kids beat him up while taunting him for being Jewish. In his own words, “I got smacked and kicked during physical education, in the locker room, in the showers. Pennies were thrown to me in the study hall in a very quiet room of 100 students. People coughed the word ‘Jew’ in their hand as they passed me in the hall way.” As Spielberg matured, as his talents blossomed, he became renowned for films like Jaws, Indiana Jones, E.T., and Jurassic Park. But somehow, these enormous commercial ventures weren’t enough for the film maker. He directed Schindler’s List, and then became involved with an on-going attempt to chronicle Jewish history as it manifested itself in the horrors of the Holocaust. Steven Spielberg walked through his wilderness of isolation – of feeling different – to making his contribution to the Jewish people – by remembering and memorializing their sufferings, their courage, their faith in God in spite of adversity.

When we are in our own wilderness experience – whatever it may be, there will be a sense of confusion and a sense of isolation. But that doesn’t mean all of our options are shut down. We, like Steven Spielberg, always have the opportunity to turn our wilderness situation around. We may not be able to change the circumstances surrounding it – but we can try to figure out what we can learn from it. I came across a moving story about a professor from San Francisco Theological Seminary. His name is Howard Rice. Once, someone in a lecture hall asked Dr. Rice, “How is it that you have become so very wise?” The professor was quiet for a while. He grabbed the sides of his wheelchair. These are his words: “Multiple sclerosis. I was a pastor in Chicago, doing great. I was living on talent, I was preaching on talent, I was administrating, doing pastoral care and all the things I had learned – all on my talent. But when I got multiple sclerosis I couldn’t handle it because I couldn’t walk any more. I had to give up a lot of my ministry. Suddenly I stopped living on talent and started living on trust and it changed my life. I thank God for multiple sclerosis. God didn’t bring it to me, but God used it to help me mature in my faith and to find and trust Him.”

We cannot escape wilderness experiences, my friends. They are part of life, and as long as we are alive they will be a part of who we are. To wallow in the wilderness and to ask God to make it go away isn’t enough. God is certainly there for us, but God isn’t a wilderness repair person. God, rather, is there as a support as we wrestle with the wilderness experiences that come our way. Maya Angelou, in her book, Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now, has this to say about our responsibilities in the tough times: “Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well.”

“A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’” God is in every wilderness experience. Know that in the confusion, in the isolation, God is there. But don’t simply wait for God. Actively seek God -- and as the prophet says, “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Amen and thanks be to God!