The Wild God

“What did you go out to the wilderness to see?” Jesus asks. John the Baptist, of course. We spoke about the wilderness last week. It is not the place where we expect the paths of the Lord to come. It is a place of danger and isolation. It is a place that marked Israel’s fear that God was not the one who had brought them out of Egypt and decided to take matters into their own hands. It was the place that Jesus, after his baptism, was met by the Tempter. “Turn this stone into bread,” the Tempter said, knowing Jesus was hungry. “Worship me, and I will give you all this,” the Tempter said, knowing anyone in their right mind would find the power offered to them too heady to refuse, even when it came from an unsavory source. “Throw yourself off the temple—prove that the angels will guard you and that your heavenly Father will save you,” the Tempter said, knowing that the prophesies would come true in this One.

What did you go out to the wilderness to see? It would be nice if we could say we go out to the wilderness to make straight the paths of the lord, to see all that has been made crooked in this world preparing the way of the Lord, but most of us look at the world around us, focused on what is crooked, feeling as if God never meant for us to participate in preparing the way of the Lord. But often, we go out to watch for the Lord, and instead of waiting for the Bread of Life, we accept the bread of temptation, of hatred, of fear.

What did you go out to the wilderness to see? It would be nice if we could say we go out to the wilderness to witness the watercourses, the spring rains that cause the region that was once sand to bloom, but most of us struggle to find beauty in the wilderness. In our own wilderness wanderings in our lives, times in which God feels far away, we feel like we have strayed too far from the path for God to find us. Isaiah tells us that not even fools will go astray, but somehow we’ve managed it.

What did you go out in to the wilderness to see? We long to be made new, but Christ’s call to live as new creations often proves too difficult, as we slip into old patterns bent on destruction. We ask God for proof, we ask Christ to show us a sign, we look for something bigger than ourselves to remind us that we are not alone.

But God doesn’t come to us in fine robes. God doesn’t come to us in the palaces. The royalty of this world shape our expectations of God instead of God shaping our expectations of what is royal. What did you go out to the wilderness to see? Are we willing to see what God has placed right in front of us? What happens when God comes to us in a still small voice in the middle of the desert, in the middle of us having given up on things getting better, in the middle of us having given up on our loved ones who have disappointed us, in the middle of our doubt and fear?

“Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.” But how? God isn’t coming to save you through brute force. God is coming through a pregnant young woman whose pregnancy probably surprised everyone. God is coming through a crazy prophet who proclaimed a baptism for the repentance of sins. God is coming through the watercourses in the land that has been parched for far too long. God is coming through the paths that have been crooked since time began, making them straight. God is coming to save you, but not how you expect.

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We watch and wait for Christ. We hold vigil with Mary and John and those who have watched and waited. We strengthen each other on the journey, reminding ourselves that our hunger is not for bread, but the Bread of Life. Our hope is not for power that always takes and serves itself, but for power made perfect in weakness, the power that comes among us as One who serves. We do not hope for faith that demands proof, but for the courage to believe that God is doing a new thing—an impossible thing—by coming to us.

What have you come out to the wilderness to see? We have come to the wilderness to watch and to wait. We have come out to the wilderness because we expect our God to show up, because God has promised to come. We come out to the wilderness as a reminder that our God is wild, not bound by time or space, not bound by convention, not bound by our expectations. No, our God exceeds our expectations. But we expect a God who plays small, who operates under the strictures of human power structures. If the voice of God sounds like the voice of the Tempter in the wilderness, offering bread that does not satisfy, power that serves only itself, and proof that requires more proof, know that it is not your God. Keep watching and keep waiting. Your God is coming to save you. There are no half measures. Your God is coming to you in the wilderness, bringing an abundant land. Your God is coming to you in the places of unrest, bringing the peace that endures. Your God is coming to you, not to prove to you through signs that demonstrate worthiness of belief, but to save you.

Dear brothers and sisters, do not settle for half measures. Do not settle for tempting half-truths of a god who can’t save you. God could have come to the places of royalty, but instead, God has made holy the wilderness places. God could have come in robes of purple and opulence, so that we would marvel at God’s riches, but instead God has come in swaddling cloths. God could have waited to come to us until we had made straight the paths in the wilderness, but instead, God has placed us on the path from which not even fools can stray. Behold, your God will come, and your God will save you.