THE WEARY WORLD REJOICES
In 2017, Sharon and I, along with another couple, traveled through the Dos Cabezas Wilderness in Arizona. Our destination was the stronghold of the Apache leader, Cochise, in the Chiricahua Mountains. The road was long and lonely and seemingly endless. It was a dry, uninhabitable and desolate place.
Upon reflection, camping in this wilderness would have been unsettling. Coyotes, roadrunners, cougars, and rattlesnakes were all around. We were far from any settlements. Sharon would have been nervous.
Someone once said that the whole purpose of camping is to make a person long for home. Paul Tripp added, “Our world isn’t a very good amusement park. No, it’s a broken place groaning for redemption. “Here” is meant to make us long for forever. “Here” is meant to prepare us for eternity.”
The year 2017 marked the beginning of a wilderness experience for me personally. My wilderness journey was one of questions, rethinking my ministry calling, wondering where I had gone wrong in pastoring, wondering if I could hear God again. I had no idea what my future would be. (This particular wilderness experience lasted four years)
Anyone who follows Jesus will ultimately discover they are in a “wilderness experience” at times in their journey. What is a wilderness experience? Why does it happen to those who are faithful to God and who try to please God with their lives?
The Bible is full of stories of the wilderness and how it shaped the people involved. Following the Red Sea crossing, the Israelites entered into the wilderness and discovered many challenges and tests regarding their relationship with Yahweh. They ended up wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. David was forced into the wilderness by a jealous King Saul who wanted to kill him. And Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit to enter into the wilderness where he was tempted for 40 days by Satan. The first word in Isaiah 35 is “wilderness” and it brings to mind all of these experiences.
No believer can avoid the wilderness experience – it is an experience we must all go through as followers of Jesus. It can take the form of depression, a crisis of faith, a traumatic life event – it is not one thing but takes many forms. It is not a fun time or one that you crave. Being in the wilderness is lonely and filled with doubt. You feel deserted by God. You feel spiritually dry and long for God to “say something.”
“Why? Why am I going through this wilderness experience?” you may ask. Because it is only in the wilderness that God can speak to you. In Hebrew, the word for “desert” means “a place of listening.” It is in the wilderness that God takes and refines you and teaches you to be dependent upon him. It is here that you shed false identities, where your pride and self-sufficiency are stripped away to reveal your true self.
The cause may be sin, as it was with Israel in Isaiah’s prophecy (ch. 34). Other times it is not punishment but a testing, a challenging of your beliefs and a preparation for a deeper purpose, a fuller spirit.
That’s where Isaiah begins this vision in ch. 35. He exuberantly describes the transformation of the wilderness from a dry and thirsty place to a green garden, “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.” (1). The themes are growth, blossoming, joy and singing. What does that sound like? Exodus terms – it sounds like deliverance; it sounds like coming out of the wilderness into the Promised Land.
That’s the secret of the wilderness experience; it has a purpose; testing comes before resting. If you can endure the spiritual desolation of the desert, the loneliness and the lying thoughts that tell you, “You are abandoned,” there will be a time of restoration.
In verses 2b-4, we see barrenness transformed into new, lush, and luxuriant life. Isaiah refers to Lebanon, Carmel, and Sharon – these images mean nothing to us – but they were regions of fertility, ordered cultivation, and attractiveness. Water, a symbol of life-giving refreshment and the Holy Spirit, returns to these parched lands and revives them. This is imagery, so you have to remember that it symbolizes a deeper reality. For those of us who have suffered physically or psychologically or socially, a renewal of your inner being is promised.
But look at the wording Isaiah uses to speak to those with fearful hearts, with anxiety about the future. He says, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” Vengeance? Recompense? On whom?
These words are typically negative in English. They carry the meaning of retributive violence, but Isaiah means something else by using “vengeance” and “recompense.” If you have been in a period of testing, God’s vengeance is nothing other than setting things right. I imagined this as a dislocated shoulder that required a violent snap to put it in its rightful place. It’s really weird to think of God’s vengeance this way, but Walter Brueggemann says, “God’s recompense is received as transformative compassion.”
I take that to mean that God’s mercy is so aggressive and so powerful it changes everything. He is so eager to pardon you. He is eager to set things right. He wants to take revenge on everything that hurts us and compensate our pain with spiritual transformation.
I think we have become so comfortable with our world being out of joint (separated shoulder; we’ve learned to live with it) that we think greed, violence, oppression, and suffering are normal. We have no idea what it feels like to have our world set right.
When we are undergoing a wilderness experience, there is another element at work. The devil comes alongside and tells you that life is unfair and this is all you get. His goal is to make you doubt that God will ever restore you and deliver you from the wreckage of life. In the same way he did with Jesus in the wilderness, the devil will show you all kinds of things that will appear to be good, attractive, wonderful. He shows them to you as a tonic for your pain. He tells you they will fill the void of your heart, what you long for. Satan’s strategy is to get us to disobey God, to interrupt our relationship with Jesus, and to steal our hope and blessing. It is in this struggle that we will be tempted to give up and doubt the integrity of God’s Word.
So, who does God take vengeance on? On whom will his recompense be felt? The devil for making you doubt. And those who had the power to change our world but were too comfortable and apathetic about the suffering of others. God will come and save you with a terrible vengeance mixed with a powerful mercy.
Imagine a dungeon so deep that is impossible to see the light of day. A man who had passionately preached about the coming of Messiah was arrested and thrown into the deepest hole. He preached about the One who would set things right and establish God’s kingdom. This man had boldly called sin what it is: SIN! He exposed the wickedness of the wrong man and got thrown in prison. He did the right thing and now he was suffering.
We see John sitting in a prison without windows wondering if he was right about Jesus. He heard about what Jesus was doing and asked someone to pose a question to Jesus, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we seek another?”This is the question of a man in a spiritual wilderness. Ironically, he was the man who came preaching in the wilderness with a message of promise and hope. Now he needs hope himself. It’s encouraging to know that even spiritual giants have questions.
Look at how Jesus answers, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me,” (Matt. 11:4-6).
Does that sound familiar? Jesus is not quoting Isaiah 35, but his work reflects the promise of Isaiah’s vision. Tim Keller said that we view miracles as the suspension of the natural order, but Jesus meant them to be the restoration of the natural order. This world was not supposed to consist of disease, hunger, and death. Jesus has come to redeem this world and to heal the world where it is broken. His miracles are evidence of his power and his kingdom but also a sampling of what he is going to do when he comes again. This is a promise, and the weary world is waiting for it. You and I are waiting for it.
The wait, this season of advent, can be overwhelming. Living in the wilderness is not easy. While we groan in expectation, we are assaulted by questions and doubts. If God loves me, why is this happening to me? I remember someone saying, “Why not you?” On the one hand, who better to wrestle with life’s pains and problems than a follower of Jesus? Someone God has equipped with the power of the Holy Spirit to face life’s toughest challenges. On the other hand, what a privilege it is to be chosen by Jesus to follow him into the wilderness and to learn to love him more. You get to witness the amazing transformation of your wilderness into a garden of joy. You get to witness a miracle.
One of the miracles of the wilderness is the revelation that God loves you unconditionally. Like Job in his misery, you can ask all the questions of God that you want, you can get angry with him, you can blame him for your pain, and so on. But one thing will never change: the promise of his love. “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Rom. 8:38-39).
Another miracle is how God provides for us in the wilderness. He gives us his “manna.” If in the desert we ask our questions and we search and search for answers, something will begin to happen in our spirits. God begins to reveal himself to us. He gives us his Word to feed on. And the more we feed on his Word, the more we know him; the more we know him, the more our longings are satisfied in him.
Then you have discovered the highway to God’s presence (8-10). The Way of Holiness. I love how it says that even fools will not get lost on this highway. There will be nothing on this highway that will harm you, no ravenous beast, no lion to frighten you. (Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life – that highway!!)
“And the ransomed of the LORD shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away,” (10).
Ray Ortlund wrote, “All our lives we’ve just wanted to be happy. But all our lives something has always spoiled it. God is saying, ‘Trust me enough to follow me, and I will bring you home with singing. I will overwhelm you with a joy unbroken and unbreakable, and your sorrow and sighing will run for it!”
A man from RFC’s past emailed us this week and asked to be taken off the membership list. He was baptized a long time ago. He explained that he had parted company from Evangelical cliches of just “trusting God.” This has bred cynicism in him as he said life is more complicated than these cliches have declared.
This man is in his wilderness experience. You may be in your own wilderness and searching for the joy you lost or never had. Wait upon the LORD. Trust him in this: the whole time Israel wandered in the wilderness, God never left them. The whole time Jesus was in his wilderness, the Holy Spirit guided him.
James says, “Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand,” (5:7-8).
He will turn your wilderness into a garden; he will turn your sorrow into joy. If it is cliché to say “trust him” then I will tell you from experience, from my own wildernesses, I have known the joy of knowing God better. Trust him. Rejoice in him. Immanuel. He is with us!
AMEN
Blessed be your name
When I’m found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name
Blessed be your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there’s pain in the offering
Blessed be your name
(lyrics by Matt Redman)
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