Survival in the Spiritual Desert

"All the prophets went off to the desert to meet God. The experience of God is inseparable from the experience of the desert." - Robert Cardinal Sarah

It is worth contemplating that we are told that Moses, John the Baptist, Jesus and Paul each went to the desert for a time, and all were deeply godly men. It was essential for each of them to become cut off from human contact and its stürm unt drang in order to begin their ministries.  Yet we - I - recoil from such deeply empty spiritual experiences. Don't get me wrong; it is the emptying that is humanly repugnant. Moses had to slough off his royal court upbringing; John had to become the mere forerunner, destined to be dead and gone, eclipsed by Christ; Jesus had to deny every human facility of reason and works; Paul had to lose his privileged and deeply academic upbringing, stop following his wits and start living by the Spirit.

Just what are each of us willing to give up in order to spend time in the wilderness with God? This is no mere academic question, but one that faces many of us every morning. For, in the West, we stand in a huge spiritual wilderness, greater than all the physical deserts of the world combined. We are told nothing about the times spent in the desert by Moses, John and Paul, but scripture leaves us a clear understanding of what Jesus faced in his desert.  Matthew and Luke provide the greatest details. What do we learn from their gospel accounts (both, purely incidentally, in their respective chapter four.)

The circumstances are that Jesus was famished and parched. To go into the desert isn't a quick experience; we must create an inseparable gap between our old way of life and the prospect of the new. In between comes the lack that creates hunger, thirst and desperation. Many Christians in the Great Western Desert know we are precisely in the geographical centre of this vast wilderness.  And we are dying of lack of nourishment. And we know it. Good - we are then ready to face the tester, the tempter, the enemy of our souls and of God. We don't need to turn to seek or face him, he will find us out in due time, and he will bring us three temptations, just as he brought them to Christ.

"Then Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit, to be tempted by the devil."

Matthew 4:1 tr. Moffatt

The first temptation is to run away. The tester says to Christ: make your own bread so that you can eat. Christ responds: God will provide me with what I need.  Many moons ago I had fallen out badly with a young pastor who was strong in his own confidence. I decided to return to Roman Catholicism, and so went of to see the local priest. However, this was not God's will to feed me the spiritual nourishment I was badly needing. I was forced to wait by God, who eventually provided another source of His bread and wine.

The second temptation is to do something spectacular in your human strength. The tester says to Christ: throw yourself off a building in public and see if God will do what He has promised in some randomly picked verses. Jesus responds: I won't try to manipulate God to follow me; I will follow Him. This temptation is to rely big time on our human rationality and to turn God merely into a man in a Book.  We cannot use the Bible in order to contradict God's will. If God has sent you into the desert it is His purpose for you in order that you become a better Christian from the experience.

The third temptation is to simply pack it all in and go native; to abandon the faith and head back to the town and get partying.  The tester says to Christ: there is an easier, surer way; simple follow me. Christ replies: you liar; my purpose, whatever the circumstances, is to worship God.  That has never been a strong temptation for me; perhaps some of the other two are less so for you, but I know many who have taken the third exit offered by the devil. It is terribly hard just sitting on the sand, under the arid sun, in a waterless and food-less place, for all intents and purposes dying.

But, this is God's will. As we in the Great Western Desert simply sit, this is what we must do until God turns up and we are ready to learn the lessons He wishes to teach each one of us. Or we could take an easy exit: take matters into our own hands, use our own brains, or simply give up. When God comes will he find faith in the land? When He comes, may He find you waiting, and desperate for Him.

Bro' John
St Annan's Chapel.