Photo Courtesy of Anne Robertson
Wilderness
Lent is almost here. In just under two weeks the church year will drag us, kicking and screaming, into 40 days of wilderness. We will be smeared with ashes and reminded that we ourselves are just dust of the earth held together with some very temporary glue. We'll remember the temptations of Jesus, the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert, and all the harshness of human life. Then, once we're good and depressed, we'll be hit with the betrayal and arrest of Jesus right before every church around the world goes dark as Jesus breathes his last.
I don't know about you, but Lent is about the last thing I want right now. I'm depressed enough, thank you. The world seems to be spinning out of control. The Body of Christ is divided without and within, reflecting rising divisions in our nation and world. Hate crimes have seen a dramatic rise and pamphlets circulate on social media telling us how to get along with our own family members. We go to church in such times hoping for living water; but here comes the church calendar telling the clergy to give us dust and ash instead. Ugh.
And yet...
If you dig into the biblical wilderness stories; if you sift through the dry desert sands, you find something stirring under the surface. As a hapless bunch of Hebrew slaves wander lost in the desert, God meets them there on a fiery mountain and forms them into a nation. As Jesus struggles with hunger, thirst, and the temptation to use his power for his own gain, he resists. He overcomes. And as angels come to minister to him, he gains the strength to begin his ministry--to go out and save the world.
The stories in the Bible are not disconnected; they form an arc of hope and promise. The stories teach us that life has wilderness periods; and sometimes they last a very long time. But that time in the wilderness is not punishment; it is formation. Faith is just a noisy gong or clanging cymbal until it is proven in the wilderness, and the church calendar takes us out there for 40 days every year to remind us of that. It is dry and dusty; harsh and cruel. We drag ourselves ever more slowly as the days go on. We suffer betrayal. We are mocked. We die.
But then...
In the dark before dawn, a new power rises up and the world is changed.
Whatever your wilderness, it is shaping you. You are being formed and prepared for the task ahead, and the tougher the wilderness, the larger the task. Do not fear the wilderness. The promise of the Bible is that even a tomb cannot hold you. Resist temptation; persist in faith and, as one Body, we will overcome.
Anne Robertson
The Rev. Anne Robertson
The Rev. Anne Robertson serves as executive director of the Massachusetts Bible Society based in Boston. This post is republished with the author's permission from her Facebook page.