Finding a Way Through the Wilderness
An Lent/Easter Message
Travelling through the wilderness is not for the faint-hearted. To journey in hope or in despair, in joy or in heartbreak can be an act of courage; often it is an act of necessity. Our journey through Lent this year has been a time of wilderness for many - experiencing a difficult journey with an unknown outcome. The landscape is unfamiliar and the horizon keeps shifting and no-one is sure what the destination will be if it is ever reached at all.
What is this wilderness? For some it is the empty wasteland of being a refugee - seeking sanctuary, shelter, a modicum of friendship in a strange land. To enter the mind of someone who has left everything behind takes most of us a huge leap of the imagination. What would it mean to have no home, to have no church or other place of worship, to leave behind family and friends or to run from the horrors of conflict and war? The people of Israel spent forty years in their particular wilderness; it must have been agonisingly slow progress at times, moving at the speed of those who were least able to travel and it certainly must have involved teamwork in order to move people, livestock and chattels from watering hole to shelter and to places of good grazing. The leadership that Moses, Miriam and Aaron offered depended entirely on the good will of the people - if the community dug in their heels and refused to move there would be devastating consequences for the whole nation. We see that unfold in Numbers 20, the tribes were in the wilderness of Zin and Miriam died. Suddenly the people had no water, perhaps Miriam had been their water diviner. In their grief people became angry and nostalgic - they remembered the good fruits of Egypt (conveniently forgetting their enslavement) and they longed to give Miriam a proper wake but had no access to figs and pomegranates in that wild and inaccessible place. They had no water to wash the grave-soil from their hands. In fear the people rose up against Moses and Aaron, ignoring the fact that Miriam’s brothers were grieving too, and they demanded leadership that would solve all their problems - they wanted a simple solution.
Moses and Aaron responded to the people by consulting with God - they turned to their spiritual loadstone and were granted what their people need. Water was brought forth from the rock and the place was named Meribah - a place of bitterness and a place of God’s providence. There was a cost to the leaders in this story, neither Moses nor Aaron made it to the ‘Promised Land’ - they remained in the wilderness.
What is this wilderness? For some (perhaps many) it is the empty wasteland of Brexit. As I write this reflection it is by no means clear what the outcome will be, short term or long term. What is clear is that the old landmarks of politics and of governing by consent are shifting or entirely missing. Whilst this affects all ages and demographics, it is young people who feel most lost and without clear direction at this time. Identities are challenged, freedoms and privileges that have been taken for granted for four or five generations are under threat and the ‘Promised Land’ seems to be a shapeless mirage built on shifting sand. By the time this article is published we may well have a new Prime Minister - it may be that there are lessons to be learned about leadership from the Matriarchs and Patriarchs of old.
What is this wilderness? For some it is an increasing awareness of the damage that unfettered consumerism and the obsession with growth as an indicator of economic health are having on our precious planet. In fact, many of our ecosystem wildernesses are disappearing as new wildernesses of deforestation, floating islands of plastic and flood-leached agricultural land emerge and vulnerable communities are moving further from the shoreline in a race against rising sea levels. The landscape of our environmental wilderness is changing, not just metaphorically, but in reality. The horizons and landmarks of creation’s health are moving dangerously towards disaster and the poorest communities worldwide will suffer the severest consequences. We need a global leadership that is interested in working together and not easily distracted by short term politics and the shiny accessories of power.
What is this wilderness? Perhaps it is the wilderness of the people of Christchurch, New Zealand. The devastating act of a single gunman upon peaceful people of faith and the wider community has changed lives and communities forever. Like many nations wounded deeply by acts of terror, the people of New Zealand could have chosen to enter the wilderness of hate, of false patriotism and savage revenge. It could have chosen to put up barriers, build walls, pull up the drawbridge and turn in on itself - but it has not. A leader has led her people with compassion, listened carefully to the pain and shown empathy. Jacinda Ardern has avoided a jingoistic, populist response and chosen instead to show vulnerability in strength, to admit that they are not a ‘perfect’ nation, they have their own racism to challenge. Bringing people together, delegating the strategic response to those with the skills needed and offering an example to the world of how to be a human being has brought the Prime Minister of New Zealand praise from around the world and has evoked a sense of hope and the first steps towards healing for those in grief.
Or is the wilderness that we have travelled, the one which Jesus himself travelled? The wrestling with our own sense of identity and purpose, our own temptations - whatever they may be for us. In order to be the person he was called to be Jesus had to be shaped by the wilderness, to be challenged by it, to find its places of shelter and oasis, to fight with those forces that would divert him from his purpose. Jesus also travelled the wilderness of Holy Week, experiencing the empty glory of a crowd that turned to a baying mob. He stood in his Father’s house of prayer and challenged those who had turned it into a wilderness of unfair trade and idolatry. He washed the wilderness dirt from his friends’ feet and experienced the pleasure and pain of being anointed in a foretaste of his own burial. Jesus travelled the wilderness of betrayal, unjust arrest, cruel trial and the ultimate degradation of the cross and the anguish of abandonment and finality of death. The joy of Easter Day is the joy of one who has crawled through the wilderness on their hands and knees, longing for one single drop of soothing water and who finds themselves in a new verdant paradise watered by a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
The wilderness in which many of us find ourselves is a hard and challenging place but it can shape us and help us discern who we are called to be, as Christians, as churches, as nations, even as a global community. We will need to rest from time to time in the oases, to catch our breath, to restore our strength and in the end, God willing, we will find our way out of the wilderness. From death will come new life, hope will rise up and conquer despair, from grief will come joy and God will be praised. Alleluia.
