MEETING GOD IN THE WILDERNESS...
ISAIAH 40:1-11
Introduction:
Someone once said that it is “only when we are brought to the end of ourselves (in other words our own strength and ability) that we are in a position to see more of God than we have seen.” How true is it that it is often only in that very moment when we realize that we are utterly and hopelessly lost that we are able to comprehend the comfort God offers? For until we reach that point there is always a semblance of self-reliance that remains, a tendency to rest on our own strength and ability (we have not yet come to the end of ourselves, as it were) and because of this we cannot fully embrace the comfort God brings...
Now our Old Testament reading taken from Isaiah 40:1-11 offers tremendous words of hope and courage in this regard – it presents us with a message of God’s eternal comfort – and suggests that this comfort is best known and experienced when we come to the end of ourselves; or, as the text prefers to put it, when we find ourselves in the wilderness or the desert. This wonderful passage is the text that we will focus our attention on this morning...
I remember that, a couple of weeks ago, Michelle preached from this very same text; and in her sermon she focused on especially the first verse with those beautiful words that form the heart of the passage: “Comfort, o comfort my people, says the Lord”.
So to begin our reflection this morning we’re going to have a pop-quiz and see how many of you can remember what Michelle said on that day... (J) No, just kidding... the crux of the message on that day came down to the fact of God’s comfort being given to us – a comfort that gives strength in times of trouble, a comfort that is offered tenderly yet perfectly (and, in truth, is given only in Christ and through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and not from any other source).
This morning I want to build on that reflection from a few weeks ago and consider the place in which God’s comfort is offered, the place to which he comes in order to offer it – a few weeks ago Michelle expounded for us the nature, reason and purpose of God’s Comfort (from the first two verses of Isaiah 40); this morning I want us to consider the place of God’s comfort (by looking at the next few verses from this same chapter, verses 3-5)... That place, of course, being the “wilderness”.
Message:
We will construct our reflection for this morning on three pillars, as it were; firstly we will consider the simple yet mysterious fact of God’s habit in meeting us in the wilderness (in other words, the fact that it is so often in these desert times and wilderness places that God makes himself known to us), secondly we will consider the strangely comforting ambiguous nature of the wilderness (in other words, that the wilderness is at the same time a terrifyingly difficult and potentially good place to be), and finally we will consider the reality of God’s initiative in transforming the wilderness into a better place (in other words, the fact that the transformation of our wilderness depends entirely on God’s initiative and work).
1. The Wilderness as the Place where God meets us...
In verse 5 of Isaiah 40 we read the following words: “A voice of one calling: in the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.”
Now, in order to fully appreciate the nuance of this text from Isaiah – as the wilderness being the place where God meets us – we must compare it with the Gospels where this verse is quoted... In each of the four Gospels this verse is quoted in reference to John the Baptist, and the emphasis is on him being the voice that Isaiah refers to. However, the slight, yet profound difference is that the Gospels present the voice as calling from out of the wilderness (and they do this because John was, of course, ministering and preaching in the wilderness as opposed to the towns); whereas the prophet presents the voice as calling from heaven and that, instead of the voice, it is in fact the ‘way of the Lord’, ‘the highway of God’ that should be prepared, and therefore is, in the wilderness.
For Isaiah then, the image is not one of announcing in the wilderness God’s arrival as an external event, but rather one of announcing from heaven the fact of God’s way and presence in the wilderness.
And this image assumes even greater significance when we keep in mind the actual context of Israel at the time of this prophecy – the historical situation in which this ancient audience found themselves was, in fact, a desert experience of immense proportions...
Babylon had conquered the great Assyrian empire and had gone on the march against nations all around them. They sacked Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple and took the Israelites into exile – leading them as prisoners through the desert and forcing them to settle in a land that was not their own (a land that to them was wild, unfamiliar, terrifying and altogether a wilderness).
It is against this backdrop of a wilderness experience that the words of the prophet would have been heard; which should strike us as all the more amazing since it is in light of this situation that the opening words “comfort, comfort my people, says the Lord” gains a whole new level of meaning and perspective. How does one proclaim a message of comfort to a people in such a difficult place? How does the prophet expect his hearers to receive this message? In what possible way does it make sense to say to people in the midst of a wilderness experience to take comfort?
One of the last things we want to hear when we find ourselves in the wilderness is that God is a God who comforts his people – because it just doesn’t make sense; our experience tends to tell us that this cannot be; circumstances blind us and, in our resulting short-sightedness, we cannot possibly come to see the truth of such a message of comfort.
When we find ourselves in the wilderness we are often tempted to agree with the famous Scottish writer from the 19th century, Thomas Carlyle, who once shared his gloomy view of God with a friend when he said simply, “He does nothing.” (Not denying the existence of God, just suggesting that if there is a God he does nothing). Or in the imagery of the renowned French author, Emile Zola, who likened history to a railway train, drawn by a locomotive whose driver had been killed, dashing at high speed into the night. He explains this imagery by saying, “The train is the world; we are the freight; fate is the track; death is the darkness; and God is the engineer – who is dead.”
Both these authors were blinded by the difficult circumstances of their own lives, they were overwhelmed by the suffering they saw and experienced; they found themselves in a wilderness and were unable to hear and believe the message we encounter in the passage from Isaiah – that God intends to comfort us. Perhaps sometimes, in the midst of our own wilderness experiences, though maybe not as intense or eloquent, we find ourselves agreeing with these authors; that God is either dead or he simply does nothing.
One would hardly blame the Israelites if they felt this way. Surely from a human perspective we would have been able to sympathize with them if – after years of oppression under the Assyrians they are finally set free, only to be conquered by a new enemy and returned into exile in a different wilderness – they would respond by not believing Isaiah’s message of comfort. Yet this is the wilderness within which the message is brought, this is the context of these words of comfort, the wilderness within which these people find themselves – and this simple fact should open our eyes to the truth that underlies the message: that God meets us in the wilderness, that God’s way (and therefore his presence) is in the desert. There is not only a voice calling in the desert, it is the very presence and way of God which we find there.
See friends, the message of comfort that Isaiah brings in this situation would only strike us as absurd if we don’t expect to find God’s presence in the wilderness. And how illustrative is this of the way we think and the assumptions we make? We often find it difficult to embrace words of comfort and hope in our own wilderness experiences because we presume that God is not there, because we think he is silent, absent, or something far worse... we think God is only to be found in the good place and on the mountain-top, so when a message of comfort is brought while we are faced with the wilderness we think it absurd. Yet this is precisely where God is to be found – when we have come to the end of ourselves and feel lost in the wilderness – that is where God is.
Isaiah knew this and so he was able to proclaim his message of comfort, not despite the fact that Israel was in the wilderness, but because they were in the wilderness, and because he knew that it was there that God would make his way, prepare his path, and meet his people.
Friends, the first pillar on which we must build a reflection of this kind, is that of appreciating the fact that God’s presence is in the wilderness – there is not merely a voice in the wilderness calling; there is the very presence of God as he makes his way in it and through it. If we are in the wilderness, let us not be afraid, for God is there; when we have been brought to the end of ourselves, let us not lose hope, for this is where we will find God.
2. The Ambiguity of the Wilderness...
And this brings me neatly to the second pillar on which we construct this reflection of ours... that the wilderness is, therefore, a place of wonderfully strange and mysterious ambiguity.
Because of all that we have just said we must concede that the wilderness – for all its tremendous difficulty and blinding challenges – is also a sanctuary for God’s presence. And this is what we mean by saying that the wilderness is a strangely ambiguous place. Beings at the same time terrifying and comforting, threatening and edifying; a place where we experience a sense of God’s absence, yet know that he is there (perhaps more powerfully so than when we are not in the wilderness).
Throughout Scripture the image of the wilderness is held in this delicately ambiguous tension. There is no other symbol, metaphor or image in all of Scripture that is both as devastatingly negative and comfortingly positive as that of the wilderness.
It was in the wilderness where Joseph was sold into slavery, yet from the wilderness he entered Pharaoh’s house and became the saviour for his family. It was in the wilderness that the Israelites were forced to dwell for forty years when they grumbled against God, yet it was here that they received manna from God’s hand and Moses was given the 10 commandments. It was to the wilderness that the prophets were often forced to flee, yet it was here that God protected them and fed them and spoke with them. Even Jesus himself was led into the wilderness, where he was tempted and tested by the devil, grew hungry and tired, yet here the angels ministered to him.
See friends, throughout Scripture the wilderness plays this wonderfully ambiguous role – being at the same time a place of desperate struggle and divine encounter.
When we read these few verse from Isaiah 40 we get the distinct impression that nothing yet has changed, regarding the situation of the Israelites. They are still in exile, the wilderness is still a reality, and a terrifying on at that, yet the language the prophet uses is remarkably positive. In the midst of this dark and negative place the prophet employs words of light and tremendous hope – he tells his hearers that “the valley shall be raised... the mountain made low... the rough ground will be smoothed over...” and the barren land will become fertile – this is a wonderful picture of the strange ambiguity we find in the wilderness.
And to cap it all off Isaiah makes the most powerful statement of all in verse 9, when he says to the people (remembering that they are still in exile, their situation has not changed; theirs is still the wilderness) yet “Here is your God!” In this place of devastation, in this wilderness, here is your God.
Friends, these then are the two pillars so far upon which we construct our reflection: firstly, the realization that God is present in the very midst of our wilderness; and secondly, that – because he is here – this wilderness is not only negative but also powerfully positive and hopeful. It is wonderfully ambiguous and therefore we can look forward in hope to the promises God makes.
3. God’s Initiative in Transforming the Wilderness...
Yet this brings us rather quickly to the final pillar of our reflection, which we will only briefly consider; that being the fact of God’s sovereign initiative in transforming our wilderness.
See, it is true that God makes glorious promises in this passage from Isaiah, promises which we read a minute ago (regarding the lifting of valleys, levelling of mountains, smoothing of rough places, etc.). Yet these are not promises given with a calendar and dead-line in mind... God does not say that he will do these things by such-and-such a time or in such-and-such a way... He makes these promises from a place of sovereignty and intends to fulfil them at his sovereign initiative.
Why is it important for us to consider this?
Well, there is another very interesting aspect to this passage from Isaiah that will not only shed light on what the prophet meant by these words, but will also help us come to terms with our own wilderness experiences and the work of God in these times.
As we have said already, Isaiah 40 verses 1-5 plays off in the heavenly court. The prophet is invited to eavesdrop on the counsel of God, as it were, and these first five verses relate what takes place there. It is not the prophet speaking to the people in these opening verses, but rather “a voice” (presumably of an angel) calling out God’s decree for his angels to prepare his way in the wilderness and the desert. He has decided that Israel has served her sentence for past sins and he will now redeem her; so he gives his angels instruction to go before him and prepare the way.
Consider the instructions given... that the valleys should be raised, the mountains should be made low, the rough places made smooth... can we do any of these things? Is it within our power to bring about any of these changes? Am I able to cause this sort of transformation? The simple answer is: no. These are things that only God can do, and will do, and thus depend entirely on his initiative.
How often are we tempted to take matters into our own hands? To force the situation and bring about the change we think should take place? How often do we find ourselves in the wilderness and end up trying to raise the valleys, make low the mountains and smooth over the rough places in our own strength? Only to find that we cannot.
Well friends, part of Isaiah’s message in these few verses, and the third pillar on which we build our reflection, is that we don’t have to – in fact we shouldn’t even try – because God will do it, at his initiative. And there is a strange comfort in realizing that there are some wildernesses which we ourselves cannot change – for we have come to the end of ourselves – and the transformation of these wildernesses is then left to God; who will do it perfectly, at his initiative.
A past president of the Society for Biblical Literature, James Muilenburg, once made the following comment in light of what we are saying here and in reference to this very same text from Isaiah 40: “We find comfort in the conviction that before man’s first and after man’s poor last effort, God works and will work... he is preparing his highway... His glory he will himself reveal.” Without our help, and at his sovereign initiative, God will do all these things.
Conclusion:
So, dear friends, the strange and ambiguous truth (as we so often experience it) is this: That God’s great and glorious comfort is offered to us in the very midst of our wilderness experience, because God’s coming is not merely announced in the wilderness – his very coming is in the wilderness.
Moreover, this simple, yet profound and eternal truth is enough to redeem every wilderness experience, for we may know that God is there – he is not absent or dead or silent (though our near-sightedness may sometimes suggest all these things) – he is there as much as, and perhaps even more so than, in any mountain-top experience... it is in the valley, the desert and the wilderness that our God comes to us.
Finally, this strange but wonderful encounter with God in the wilderness, this gloriously redemptive nature of God’s coming to us in the wilderness, is not something that depends on our effort or activity – it is done entirely at God’s initiative – it has been done already, at God’s initiative, when Christ came for us all those many centuries ago in the midst of the wilderness of that time!
Christ comes to us again this very morning, as host at his Table, to meet with us and to minister his grace to us. I do not know whether you are in a wilderness of sorts this morning (I know that some of you are), I may presume that many of us are, and I wouldn’t be surprised of all of us are – but the good news of the Gospel is this: that Christ came for us in the midst of our wilderness, he did not simply announce it there, he came in that very same dark and cold place – allow him to do the same again this morning.
As you come to this Table, allow the Lord to meet you and feed you in your own wilderness, for though you may not see or hear or experience him there now. We may be assured that he is there; Christ is in our wilderness, and what a comfort that is!
May I leave you with the words that this great prophet Isaiah uttered in verse 9 of our reading for this morning – this may well be the wilderness, but remember these words: “Here is your God!” AMEN
