“Comfort, comfort my people . . . in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.”  Isaiah 40

“The Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for forty days.” Luke 4

“When in the wilderness you are the blink of an eye from being fully awake.” Robbie George

Thanksgiving is past, Advent is here, Christmas is coming.  Are you prepared?  It is the invitation that one hears not only from all those competing for the almighty consumer dollars, but also, in a much quieter sense, from the prophets like Isaiah and John, voices of those calling out in the wilderness.

I was mindful of the wilderness this past week during my Thanksgiving Road trip to Wisconsin.  Two experiences served to remind me of the reality of the wilderness experience.  The first was driving the long stretches of interstate, (an idea that took root in the mind of Eisenhower after viewing the autobahn in Germany during WW II), at speeds that would’ve been incomprehensible to those traveling similar roads prior to the advent of automobile transit.  The contrast between my car hurtling along at almost a hundred miles an hour to that of covered wagons making at most 10-15 miles per day was sobering.  For those early pioneers the land represented a great unknown into which they were passing, with the very real possibility of meeting their demise.  Some found their way, many, many others never made it through alive.

The other experience that reminded me of the wilderness was the sight of people dressed in blaze orange in Wisconsin; hunters pursuing white-tail deer.  In Wisconsin Thanksgiving and hunting season go hand-in-hand.  During my trip I was transported to the wonderful memories of being with my father, not watching football as many today do, but instead trudging for ten days through the vast expanse of woods where I grew up.   Even though it was the 1970’s, much of Northern Wisconsin had not been tamed by farms, snowmobile trails, or private landowners. “No Trespassing” signs were the exception rather than the rule.  Some of the places where dad hunted were still very wild and untamed, and represented a very real chance of getting lost.  Dad would repeatedly remind me that if I did lose my way to just stay put and he would find me.  He emphasized the point with tales of other hunters who had gotten disoriented and had to be rescued either by him or others in his hunting party.  The stories were simultaneously sobering, scary, and a little bit reassuring.

There are three types of wildernesses associated with the Christmas story.

The first is the wilderness of the universe.  It is difficult for almost all but the physicist, the one most familiar with the immensity of the cosmos, to even begin to conceptualize how massive the known galaxy is.  Here is an example that might help: If you were to board a spaceship traveling at the speed of light, it would take eight seconds to reach the sun; it would take 90 billion years to reach the outer limits of our solar system as we know it.  It is an inconceivable thought, the magnitude of which makes one realize how great God is one hand, and how small we are on the other.  It is from this ever-expanding universe that God somehow condensed all of that divine matter and energy into a small piece of humanity that we call the Christ.  It is a title that captures the concept of divine condensation that knows no limits into the most unique child in the history of the world.

The second wilderness signifies the various wild places on this earth that are void of human habitation. Human history is replete with wilderness stories, most of which are disturbing.  It is in the wilderness that protagonists in myths of old would meet their nemesis.  It was in the wilderness that characters from fairy tales would encounter witches and wild things.  It was into the wilderness that Bilbo and Frodo Baggins ventured on their classic quest depicted by Tolkien in Lord of the Rings.  The mighty Roman legion was destroyed in the wilderness of the Teutoburg forest in 9 AD, and two of the most destructive battles of the Civil War were fought in what was simply called “The Wilderness.”

The wilderness was symbolic of all that one most feared in life and death.  It is this locus that Isaiah refers to in his comfort passage, this wilderness from which John the locust eater hails, this wilderness into which Jesus plunges to be tried by the devil.  The fact that Jesus encounters the devil there is significant, as the wilderness was understood as a place of danger, darkness, and death. Thus it is no surprise that it is in the wilderness that God calls out with a cry of comfort to come into the place of safety and security.  It is through the wilderness that God builds a road upon which one can traverse without fear. 

And the wilderness is understood in a figurative, spiritual sense.  The wilderness is that place that one finds themselves seemingly separated from God.  It is a strange place of shadows.  It is a confusing place where one wanders without direction. It is a place where one faces the internal demons that haunt and threaten to destroy.  It is a place where one seeks someone or something to provide guidance, direction, and deliverance. It is this wilderness that one must enter in order to take the refining spiritual journey that leads to total dependence upon God. It is in the stifling lost ness of the forest of fear that one discovers divine love, and is led into faith in One who is safe and secure.  It is in the realization that the previous path upon which one trod led into this purifying purgatorial path upon which the only hope is to follow Another who has trod it.  It is in the middle of nowhere that one reaches the outer limits of one’s own abilities, is left empty and void of all personal resources that had previously been utilized to navigate life, and in this state of utter weakness, destitute of all that has previously been relied upon or held dear, that one discovers a direction, yes perhaps the only direction, that will provide a reliable design for navigating this earthly life and conducting one finally into the eternal. 

Where is your wilderness?  When have you been there?  Are you there now?  It is a place where no one wants to be, or intentionally enters, but if fortunate is led.  For it is there that one quite possibly, yes probably, will encounter God and be led down the path through and to life.