“Desert Delights”
John 1:6-28
Advent 3: JOY
Rev. Rich Gelson, Fairmount Presbyterian Church
What joy is there to
be found in a desert wilderness? How does this joy strengthen us as we seek to
see and to proclaim the Savior of the world, the one who comes again and again
to be present in our lives? These are
the big questions John the Baptist beckons us to answer for ourselves on this
third Sunday in Advent.
Throughout the Bible,
the word “wilderness” has two primary purposes. First, it refers to physical locations. Second, it works as a figure of speech, as a
metaphor.
As a physical
location, the wilderness can simply refer to travel routes and locations where
holy historic happenings took place. The
trouble is, we are told that many of these routes and locations are sites where
dangers, rebellions, temptations, and deadly battles took place. Deuteronomy 8:15, for example, tells us that
the people of Israel left Egypt only to find themselves in “the great and
terrible wilderness, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpians.” And it
was in this scary place that Jesus spent forty days at the very beginning of
his ministry, confronted by wild beasts and intense evil temptation.
However, the
wilderness is at other times also described in the Bible as a place of safe
sanctuary, of refuge, a location for worship and remembering God’s covenant
promises. That scary wilderness in the
time of the great exodus was, after all, also where the bitterly complaining
Israelites experienced miraculous reminders that God was guiding them and
providing for them every step of the way.
And Jesus was survived and thrived during his dramatic wilderness days by
prayerfully relying on divine power.
The tangible history
of the Israelites and of Jesus thus also frames the wilderness as a figure of
speech. So when we read of “wilderness,”
we are inspired to consider not only a physical terrain, but also our inner, spiritual
terrain – the place within our hearts and minds where we experience great fear
for our lives and have our faith tested; the place where the temptation to turn
against God most sinfully summons as well where we can respond by boldly
calling upon God’s gracious power to deliver us.
Why are we having this
brief Bible study? Well, where did John
the Baptist live and minister? In the
wilderness! A hostile setting is where
God spoke to John about his true purpose in life, his holy calling. This
same divine word had inspired John’s mother, Elizabeth, to say to her pregnant
relative Mary, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your
womb.” (Luke 1:28). This same divine word had motivated John’s father, Zechariah,
to declare that his newborn son would be “called the prophet of the Most High,”
a child born to grow-up to “give knowledge of salvation” by going before the
Lord to “prepare his ways.” (Luke 1:76).
We know from our
lesson this morning that this is exactly how John’s life unfolded. He was first strongly steeped in desert solitude. Once brewed to the proper intensity, to the
bold flavor of his calling, John then stepped out to the edge of the wild life
and directly to people’s mainstream living.
There, he called for repentance – for people to turn away from sin and
turn back toward God. He did so to
point a firm finger in the direction of his Jesus, the light of the world, from
whose fullness all receive grace upon grace.
When confronted about this by the religious authorities of his day, the
Pharisees, unabashedly announced that he was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s
prophecy (Isa. 40:3) – the voice crying out in the wilderness to declare the
arrival of the “greater one” standing
among them, the Christ they had been waiting for.
Can you imagine what
his tone of voice probably sounded like? Chances are a bold, fierce, frightening voice
of warning first comes to mind … a voice that matches a desert dwelling prophet
decked out in prickly camel-hair clothing and with breath saturated in the
scent of wild honey and desert locust meat.
I do believe, though, there was something else
resonating through John’s voice.
Something unmistakable for someone so powerfully aware of God’s abiding
presence, of the Good News of God’s plan of salvation unfolding not just in
some cosmic spiritual realm but directly in the flesh. There just had to be joy in that voice, joy in declaring the fullness of grace upon
grace for all humankind through the person of Jesus.
This joy was forged in
his heart through the Holy Spirit. And
again, to my main point this morning, it was forged directly through his
wilderness experiences.
Case in point, I just mentioned his desert diet
of wild honey and locusts. Sounds
rather gross to us, but to John, focused on surviving in a hostile environment,
these were desert delights. With all of
the threats he had to guard against in that way of life – from hungry beasts to
isolating depression – he did not lose sight of the fact that in the wilderness
experience, there is plentiful, holy provision to be found that brings joy to
the heart and soul.
In the case of the
desert locust, there was an additional plus.
Recall that at the announcement of John’s birth it was declared that he was
to grow up as a person of ritual purity.
Whatever food he found find in the desert might have not been an option. Keeping his spirit clean just might well
have trumped keeping his belly full. From
learning his scriptures, however, we assume he knew Leviticus 11:22, which indicated
God regarded the desert locust as a clean creature. He therefore knew eating
these green-brown winged critters would not defile him. Plus, I understand they nourished him well,
for fifty percent of a dried locust is composed of valuable protein![i] Joy!
There is something
else joyful about the imagery of eating locusts in the desert that is worth
mentioning. After they hatch and are
fed, they leave their solitary life behind.
They join up together, forming masses to cover the ground. Now … John fed on the wild life until it
was time to leave that behind, his time to be the voice crying out from the
wilderness. That’s when he joined up
with other people, recruiting disciples for his ministry. That meant more mass covering the ground of
declaring the Good News of the Messiah.
So in addition to the joy of having locusts to feed on, perhaps he also had
the joyful inspiration of how to prepare the world for Emmanuel – through great
gatherings of witnesses!
You and I don’t live
in a wilderness. True enough, compared
to the urban and suburban environments I was accustomed to before moving here,
my first year or so living in this area kind of felt like it. And some of you may well have had some
actual wilderness living at some point in your lives. Today, though, we don’t live in a desert
wilderness the likes of which we hear about in the Bible. Yet we do have our own kinds of wilderness
experiences. The good kind that
reenergizes and reconnects us to the life that is in all of creation, as when
we go spend time in the woods or go on some great outdoor adventure. And we have the tougher kind too – the wilderness
found in our innermost terrain of heart and mind. We have wildernesses of loneliness, of
grief, of fear, of economic hardship, of social exclusion … to name a few. In
both places of wilderness, we come to realize and recognize anew that God is
always providing for us, always strengthening us for meeting and proclaiming
the Christ who is ever present.
I recently read and
related to one man’s particular wilderness … and it’s one we all live in as
well. The difference is, this guy’s a
bit like John the Baptist in terms of what he calls us to do. I’m speaking of a Texas Christian University professor
named Jeff Ferrell.
On the one hand, he is
a respected academic who lectures on sociology and criminology and has written
nine books. He looks like he’d fit in
perfectly fine on the cast of the television show C.S.I.
On the other hand, he
has a reputation as an urban scrounger, as a profoundly committed dumpster
diver. He does so to find all sorts
of stuff that should have been donated or recycled. He then diligently donates or recycles
them. But … he also lives off of other
people’s discards … his clothing, his home furnishings, and he has no aversion
to nourishing himself with prepackaged food he finds. This authentic, high energy, spiky-haired
PhD’s lifestyle of reclaiming waste is paired with his passionate teaching
about the ill effects of consumerism.
“I think it’s appalling on the level of just sheer waste and full
landfills … it’s also profoundly disturbing given the level of need in our
society,” he said during a recent interview.
His main point of emphasis is on how the constant rush, rush, rush of
American culture cultivates the habit of just throwing things away. He knows that much of the stuff found at the
wilderness edge of society has great value.
He clothes and nourishes himself with it. In
the wastelands, he finds provisions and uses these to strengthen his call to
repent of behavior that casually tosses poverty of body and spirit aside,
behavior that inhibits joy in the community of all God’s children.
What wildernesses have
you experienced in the past, might you be experiencing right now? Figuratively speaking, what sort of wild
honey and desert locust sustained and strengthened your faith?
Christmas
Eve truly is coming right up. Blink and
it will be here. Our Sunday morning
Advent journey has led us through hope by way of Isaiah 64, through love by way
of Psalm 85, and today, joy by way of John the Baptist. None of these sacred texts are gentle
greeting card interpretations of hope, love and joy. Each calls us to seriously examine the way
we abide by our faith as we prepare to revisit the silent night our Savior
became fully present to the world.
Practically speaking, just think about what it means to prepare for
child’s birth. There is a lot of
material planning that happens … but there’s also an emotional and spiritual
inventory taking place. This Advent and Christmas season we should be
doing no less as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the Son of God. May you experience the deep blessing of joyful
reminders in the wilderness, and may your faith be refreshed the remainder of
your personal Advent journey and our Advent adventure together as faithful
people in Christ. Amen.
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