Welcome to the wilderness!
Psalm 32
Romans 5:12-19
Matthew 4:1-11
“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness
to be tempted by the devil.”
Matthew 4:1 (New Revised Standard Version)
I grew up in the last house on a dead end road, in a small town in upstate New York. Beyond our house the world seemed to be a wilderness: dense forest occasionally opening up into meadows, followed by more forest. It was an exhilarating and sometimes frightening place for a young boy.
The wilderness can be desert, vast woodland, a mountain range, or even an experience of life which feels uncharted and unexplored. It can seem to be a harsh and forbidding landscape, and yet can also be a place where we learn new skills, discover inner strength, and come to know ourselves supported by unseen hands. Christianity, Judaism and Islam were born in the wilderness spaces of the Middle East. It was into the wilderness that Jesus went before he taught and healed and loved the world with his fierce and tender truth. It was a place of testing and discernment: an experience of settling into his devotion to God.
Throughout life we may experience the wilderness in many forms, sometimes as a beautiful though forbidding landscape, and sometimes as a journey of profound transition. The good news of the gospel is that throughout all of these experiences, God is with us and for us. In marvelous and unforeseen ways, we are strengthened to walk in faith, with love, and energized by hope.
God of steadfast love, we give you thanks that you are known to us in the wilderness journeys of our lives, and pray that you will guide and strengthen us as we navigate the uncharted regions of faith, hope and love. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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