“In the wilderness.” The words might have been easily overlooked in order to get into the meat of the story with ideas of repentance and images of baptism by fire and threshing floors. But, those three words, “in the wilderness,” have the ability to tell the whole story.
As a scenic designer for the theatre, I realize that setting can shape everything. If the play is intimate, you want to design small little nooks and crannies in the scenery where people can be close to each other and attention focused.
If the play is whimsical, you want to use exaggerated roof lines and use extremely sized props like a book twice as big as it should be.
Though people rarely think about the nature of the scenery in the play and how it contributes to the plot (other than to marvel if it is particularly beautiful), it still can make or break show by focusing the audience appropriately.
But, you do not need to be trained as a scenic designer to understand this concept. Most people already understand it quite naturally.
When you want to pop the big question, “Will you marry me?” you carefully consider the setting. Perhaps, you choose an intimate setting, a restaurant maybe, with low light, candles, and high backed booths so as to provide privacy and space for quiet and personal conversation.
When you want to get away from it all, you may choose a cabin out in the woods, or…better yet…next to a lake on which it is impossible for other people to stand and bother you. Unless, of course, it is Jesus bothering you. Standing on lakes do not seem to faze the savior.
So, if you wanted to choose a setting for repentance, where would you choose?
It probably would help if you knew exactly what repentance was first.
Repentance, contrary to popular notions, is not the state of emotion where we simply feel sorry all the time. No need for depressing dark basements on our stage. Though feeling sorry can definitely be a part of repentance, the true meaning of repentance is “to turn around,” or to have a dramatic change of mind and direction.
As Ron Allen, Professor of Preaching and New Testament
Christian Theological Seminary Indianapolis, Indiana puts it in his workingpreacher.org commentary: "To repent is to turn away from the values and practices of the old age (e.g., idolatry, violence, injustice, exploitation, slavery, and scarcity)" and to turn towards the values and practices of the Realm of God "which seek to increase love, peace, justice, dignity, freedom, and abundance."
So, back to setting, if you wanted to choose a setting for repentance…for leaving old values behind, and turning toward new ones, which one would you choose?
That is where the wilderness comes in. Picture a barren flat plain where only locusts and bees make an appearance every-so-often. Imagine a place devoid of human civilization and innovation. Imagine a place that lacks all of your old ways of life, and only holds space…vast amounts of space for something new.
Spring flowers are nice in any setting, but they are particularly striking on a barren flat plain in the wilderness. They are like a dream that materialize into reality where, before, there seemed to be dust and no possibilities.
Only in the wilderness, barren of all distractions, do the best dreams spring up. Dreams and hopes that look a lot like a wolf living peacefully with a lamb.
Such an image in the real world seems absurd with all of the world’s complexities, but in the wilderness, where we can strip away realness for a few moments, it gives us hope and provides the space for new ideas on how to achieve the peace found within the image.
The same is true for the other images in Isaiah 11 where, “the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord.”
Only in the wilderness, stripped of the old ways of life, can we even start to dream such dreams and scheme new ways to make a world of love, peace, and justice a reality.
So, what are we waiting for? Give yourself the gift of taking a moment right now to walk toward the wilderness.
As you walk toward the barren plain, dust swirling just mere feet ahead of you, you realize that most of the weight you have been carrying around has no use in the wilderness. Just as you have no use for kitchen sinks in the wilderness, you too have no use for the other things that have been weighing you down in life.
What has been weighing you down the past few weeks?
What has been taking control of your thoughts and feelings?
What has been causing anxiety and influencing all that you do and say?
Allow Christ to slip those things off of your shoulders as you step into the wilderness.
Take a moment to breathe a deep breath. Breath the same fresh air to which John the Baptist was drawn as he wandered out into the barren space.
Feeling refreshed, feeling the weight of the past dropped from your shoulders, allow yourself a moment to consider the dreams God has allowed you to dream.
After-all, the world does not have to be the way it is. It does not have to have hate. It does not have to have conflict. It does not have to have insensitivity. It does not have to have addictions. It does not have to have any of the stuff that weighs us down.
Just take a moment and allow yourself to image that the world does not have to be this way.
What sort of vision has God given you for a new world?
What sort of vision has God given you for your life and the life of your neighbor?
What is the dream God has given you?
Like the flowers growing in the wilderness, those dreams are possibilities that God can bring into reality. Wait for them to grow. Wait for the Lord to move. Wait for the Lord, and, join in when the Jesus does move. Follow in the path that Jesus creates, and be God’s dream.
Do not just dream God’s dream for the world, be God’s dream for the world.
And, with an actual step taken in a new direction in life; that, my friends, is repentance.
Repentance is not a one and done deal either. It is a way of life. It is a way of faith. It is wandering into the wilderness daily, allowing Christ to put the old to death, and then allowing Christ to raise us up again in the new.
It is the clearing of the weeds and trash from our threshing floors and burning it up so that we only have rich grain left.
Repentance and new life is the way that Jesus provides for us to be the kingdom of God. And, it all starts with a trip into the wilderness.
No comments:
Post a Comment