“Bible places: the Wilderness”
Mark 1:1-8
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
“Bear” Grylls is a British writer and adventurer from Northern Ireland. He’s best known for his television series called, Man vs. Wild.
As far back as he can remember, he’s had a love for the outdoors. He learned to climb and to sail with his father. As a teenager, he learned to skydive and earned a second-degree black belt in karate.
When he was twenty-three, he achieved his childhood dream of climbing to the summit of Mount Everest, one of the youngest climbers ever. Even more remarkable is that he had broken three vertebrae in a parachuting accident some eighteen months before.
But that’s nothing! In 1997, he was the youngest Briton ever to climb Ama Dablam, a peak that Sir Edmund Hillary once said was “unclimbable.”
And since then, he’s done all kinds of crazy things, like jet skiing around the British Isles, crossing the north Atlantic in an inflatable boat through gale force winds, and having dinner in a hot air balloon, twenty-five thousand feet in the air.
He’s parachuted from helicopters, balloons, and airplanes, waded through rapids, and run through a forest fire. He’s eaten snakes, deer droppings, and various “creepy crawlies.” He’s wrestled alligators, free-climbed waterfalls, and field dressed a camel.
And besides all the peculiar things he’s done, he’s also written several books and appeared in countless television shows and commercials. Now he’s serving as Britain’s Chief Scout, the youngest ever.
And of his many quotes, he’s known to say, “Storms make us stronger,” and, “The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist expects it to change, and the realist adjusts the sails.”
“Bear” loves the wilderness.
But typically, none of us do. We like cities, towns and villages, where a good shopping mall is within easy reach, and the closest grocery store is less than five minutes away.
And when I’m talking wilderness, I’m not talking about trees, lakes, and streams. I’m talking about barren hills, deep valleys, and sun-baked dirt that stretches for miles. David, in Psalm 63, called it, “a dry and weary land, where there is no water.” It’s a lonely place, a dangerous place, a place full of trials and troubles, where we’re either victim or prey.
But it’s a place where God comes.
Please turn with me in your Bible to page 1063, to the words of Mark chapter 1, our gospel reading for today. I’ll start at chapter 1, verse 1: “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in Isaiah the prophet, ‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face, who will prepare Your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.”’ John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
Did you notice those words—“crying in the wilderness” and “baptizing in the wilderness”?
Why not in cities, towns or villages? Why not the temple or the synagogue? Why the wilderness?
If you think about it, a lot of important things have happened in the wilderness. After all, with few exceptions, the “great names” of the Bible were wilderness people.
If I were to ask you where Adam was created, you’d probably say, “In the Garden of Eden.” But look a little closer at the text, and you’ll see he wasn’t made in the Garden, he was placed there. Genesis chapter 2 says, he was made where “no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up.” God placed him in the Garden, but made him in the wilderness.
And when God called Abraham to follow Him, he spent the rest of his life in the wilderness. When Jacob dreamed of a stairway reaching up to heaven, with angels ascending and descending, he was in the wilderness.
Moses spent most of his life in the wilderness. For forty years, he was raised as a son of Pharaoh, but spent the next eighty years in the wilderness.
Jesus spent a lot of time in the wilderness too. Just as soon as He was baptized, the Bible says the Spirit drove Him out into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. The Bible also says He prayed in the wilderness and He fed the five thousand in the wilderness.
Even more, He was crucified outside the city, buried outside the city, and rose from the dead outside the city, on the very edge of the wilderness.
Even the apostle Paul spent time in the wilderness. The book of Galatians said he spent three years there.
So it’s no surprise that as John began his ministry, he cried out in the wilderness, and baptized in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord.
And what did he say? Look at verse 7: “And he preached, saying, ‘After me comes He who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
To the tax collectors, he said, “Collect no more than you are required to collect.” To the soldiers, he said, “Don’t extort money, and don’t accuse people falsely.” And to the Pharisees and Sadducees, he said, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come?”
Faithfully, he prepared the way for the Lord.
Gail Banke, in her book, Between Trapezes: Flying into a New Life with the Greatest of Ease, writes: “We all know the moment. The man on the flying trapeze sheds his sweeping cape and glittering costume. High in the big top, he grabs the bar, lifts off the pedestal, and then swings—one, two, three times. Craning our necks to the sky, we watch with our hearts in our throats, waiting for the big moment. Then it happens: He releases the bar. For three glorious seconds he’s in midair, one bar fading behind him, the other floating forward.”
For just a moment, it’s where he defies gravity. It’s where he soars.
Her story began in September of 2003, as she was just about to sit down for dinner. That’s when a series of explosions rocked her New York apartment building, just two years after the September 11th attacks. She said, “You could not only hear them, you could feel them.”
She shouted to her husband, then laid flat on the kitchen floor, waiting for the next explosion to blow.
And as she ducked for cover, she said the explosions sounded more like gunfire than bombs. So carefully, she looked out her window towards the skyline of upper Manhattan, then down the street. A crowd of people had gathered, and most of them were looking up into the sky.
That’s when she saw them—brightly colored fireworks exploding in the sky.
And that’s when she realized that New York wasn’t being attacked. Central Park was celebrating its 150th anniversary, even though it sounded like an all-out terrorist attack.
And she said, “Sometimes it takes a crisis, in a country or in a company, for you to find out who you are, what you stand for, and what you stand against. Sometimes it takes a crisis to really learn what you’re made of and what you want to become…and to summon up the energy to create a vision for how good life could be. Those times of crisis are our defining moments.”
As another author put it: “It’s not so much that we’re afraid of change, or so in love with old ways, but it’s that place in between we fear…it’s like being in between trapezes. It’s Linus when his blanket is in the dryer. There’s nothing to hold on to.”
At one time or another, every one of us has spent time in the wilderness—waiting for the job interview…hoping for good news from the doctor…watching our money run out…worrying about our children…trying to forgive, yet finding it so hard…praying for a son or daughter in the military…working to restore a broken relationship…feeling stuck in the mud and wondering if life will ever change…trying to rebuild our shattered dreams.
And there, feeling all too lost and alone in the wilderness, we watch and wait and pray.
Anne Hjelle grew up in Minnesota, then on a whim, enlisted in the Marines. And while she worked as a helicopter mechanic in Tustin, California, she took up mountain biking. She loved the trails and the outdoors.
But on one clear, cool, January afternoon, in Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, her world changed.
As she and her riding partner, Debi Nicholls, swept through the curves of Cactus Trail, a ride she had taken hundreds of times before, she was suddenly, in her words, “punched off her bike with the force of a speeding truck.” A mountain lion knocked her down and with its massive jaws, locked onto her head. She was in a fight for her life.
Debi jumped off her bike and threw it at the lion, but the lion didn’t care. So she grabbed Anne’s legs in a frantic tug of war.
Then when the lion pulled back, Anne’s face started to come apart. Little did they know that, earlier that day, it had already killed someone else. Then other mountain bikers threw rocks until, finally, it let go. There was blood and Anne struggled to breathe.
She was airlifted to a local hospital. The entire left side of her face had been torn off.
But after undergoing hours of reconstructive surgery, months of recovery, and scars to last a lifetime, she survived. She said, “It was a terrifying experience, and it felt like it dragged on forever, but I honestly didn’t think at that point that I was going to make it. I was thinking, I am not afraid of dying because of my faith in Christ. I know where I’m going.”
And as she reflects on that most terrifying moment in her life, she said the words of Jesus in John chapter 14 take on a richer, deeper meaning: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Is there any doubt? There shouldn’t be. See the nails, the cross, and the crown of thorns. See the open tomb.
Sure, the wilderness is a dangerous place, a place full of trials and troubles of all kinds, where we’re either victim or prey.
But it’s a place where God comes.
In the words of the prophet Isaiah: “The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom…the glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the splendor of Carmel and Sharon; they will see the glory of the Lord, the splendor of our God.”
Dear Father, You once sent John out into the wilderness to prepare the way for the Lord. Even today, especially today, make our hearts ready to meet Him. In His name we pray. Amen