Life in the Wilderness

In the second grade I went sledding with my cousin on one of the hills behind the high school in Frankenmuth. Now these hills were big. Almost as big as the ones you would find in Colorado. But we were brave thrill seekers and so we didn’t mind getting up there with our toboggan and staring death in the face. We get on the toboggan and we launch ourselves down the hill. We are just flying down this thing with great speed. And then suddenly we realized that we were literally flying through the air. My cousin says, “this isn’t good.”

Someone had built a ramp, that we did could not see from the top of the hill. But we hit this thing dead on, and since toboggans aren’t really made for flying, they don’t exactly do the best job of landing either. It kind of hurt. But that is just how things go sometimes. Sometimes they don’t go exactly according to plan.

What do you do when things don’t go according to plan? Do you panic? Do you roll with the punches so to speak? Are you one of those who is laid back? Do you become cynical? For others it is a matter of longing for the good old days.

Ah the good ol days. You remember the good ol days right? If only things were today the same way there were back then. Everything would be well with the world. Everything would be the way that it is supposed to be. Everything would be perfect.

Of course the problem with the good ol days is that they are not always exactly the exact way we remember them. We arrive at the good ol days through a process called “selective Historical Re-creation.” This is where we pick and chose which historical facts we want to selectively remember and which ones we want to pretend didn’t happen, so that we can re-create a past reality that, while it may not be accurate, will ultimately help you to prove your point. I understand that husbands are naturally very good at this.

And this Selective Historical Re-creation is what is happen for children of Israel as they find themselves wondering in the dessert. They have quite a history. God called their ancestor Abram and he went in faith to a land where he did not know. God made a special covenant with Abram and with his family. Because through Abram all the nations of the world would be blessed. God told Abram, who had no children at the time, that his descendants would be as many as the stars in the heavens.

Isaac was born. Latter Jacob and Easu. Jacob had twelve sons, and many daughters too, but he had twelve sons, one of whom because the second most powerful man in Egypt, which meant that he was the second most powerful person in the world. Because of a great famine, Jacob and his family moved down to Egypt where they settled and grew.

The family that came from the man who had no children, now numbered in the hundreds of thousands. But they had also become slaves to the Egyptians. And they had been so for generations. And then comes Moses. God works through him and brings the people out of slavery and toward the promised land. This whole time they have seen some amazing things. The plagues. They passed through the sea on dry ground. There is the tabernacle, God’s presence in the midst of their very camp. And manna. Bread from heaven.

And yet, that Selective Historical Re-creation thing is in full swing. They are sick of the manna. I guess that is not too difficult to understand. I mean there are only so many ways that you can eat manna. For breakfast there is scrambled manna with a side of hickory smoked manna, or manna-cakes with maple syrup. Or just a plain bowl of manna-Os. For lunch you can go to subway and get a foot long manna ball sub on toasted manna. Or maybe even a McManna sandwich with a side of manna fries. And for dinner a nice slab of manna roast. Or Manna-roni and cheese. That’s some good eating right there.

Being in the wilderness is difficult. Some of the people just had about as much as they could stand and we see their Selective Historical Re-creation kicking in. You can almost hear them, can’t you? Remember the good ol days? Remember being back in Egypt? There was a lot of good food there. We had meat, and fish. There were cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic. Now there is nothing here but this manna.

Of course they had forgotten the fact that they were in slavery in Egypt, and that life was difficult and hard. They had forgotten how Pharaoh had ordered that all male babies were to be instantly killed. They had forgotten about making bricks and rough task masters. But as I said, life in the wilderness is though.

On occasion we can find ourselves wondering in the wilderness. It is never a fun or pleasant place to be. After all it is a desolate place. From a spiritual perspective being in the wilderness is being in a season when you feel like God has deserted you. That’s why it is called the desert!

There are usually two times that we will end up in a spiritual wilderness. The first is after a crisis. The second is after a huge victory. Moses experienced both in his life. The first time was after a crisis. He had just murdered an Egyptian, and so he ran, into the wilderness. He lived there for forty years, until God had called through the burning bush. The second time was after two really big victories; the Passover, and the parting of the sea.

Some times in our lives we find that a tragedy will take us on the path of wilderness wandering, and other times we will experience an amazing spiritual faith boost like God using us in a special way, or when we come home from a mission trip or servant event, and then all goes quiet and we find ourselves back in the wilderness.

Have you ever found yourself in the wilderness? Have you found yourself in that place where you feel like God has deserted you? Maybe the bills are burying you, or the illness keeps persisting, or you find yourself faced with the reality that that dream is turning to disappointment. Or you were on that mission trip and everything felt great and you were felling really close to God, and since you have been back, you just haven’t been able to recapture that feeling.

While being in the wilderness is not very much fun at all. I mean we are not exactly dealing with a prime vacation destination here. It can be very painful even. But that does not mean that being in the wilderness is always bad. Because it is in the wilderness that we learn to let go of those things that we place our hope and trust in, until all we have left is God and we realize that in him we have all that we need.

But getting to this point can take a long time. And we don’t necessarily like to wait. Right? I know that patience in s a virtue, but if I wanted patience I would have been a doctor. For the people of Israel in the dessert, they are putting too much importance on their stomachs. They are too concerned with the menu. Not that I blame them. I catch myself focusing way too much on food. This is something that I can relate to. But if life were only about food, that would be a pretty sad life. Life is not about food. We eat to live, not live to eat.

So the people do what comes oh so naturally to us, they complain. And they go to the door of Moses’ tent and they whine at him about manna menu. And Moses, does what any good leader would do, he goes to the Lord and he whines and complains. “why are you doing this to me? Did I conceive these people? Did I give birth to them? How am I supposed to give them their food? I didn’t sign up for this. If this is the way that it is going to be, than just kill me now. Not that I blame Moses either. This is something that I can relate to. I like things to be neat and in order. A place for everything and everything in its place. Things are good if there are no problems to deal with or take care of and everyone is happy. But life is not always about not having any problems to deal with.

You see, when we find ourselves in the wilderness, it is not because we are being punished for our sins. God doesn’t work that way. But when we find ourselves in the wilderness, we are there because God is preparing us for the next thing that he has in store for us.

Have any of you ever run a marathon? Do you just get up the morning of the race and start running? I wouldn’t recommend it. You have to work at it. And it is hard work. There is pain involved and you have to be really dedicated to it. And yet, once you have completed your training you are ready for the race.

So we can think of these wilderness experiences in our lives as times where God is preparing us for the next thing he has in store for us. It is not fun to go through, but when we come out, we will be prepared to do what it is that God has given us to do. For the children of Israel in our text, they are being prepared to enter into the promised land. They are moving from being slaves in a foreign land to being free people in a new home. They are moving from being in life in Egypt to life lived in relationship with God and with him dwelling in their midst.

Now if you jump ahead between several hundred years, we find in our scriptures another wilderness story. This one stars Jesus. After his baptism he enters the wilderness and is there forty days. Now in one sense he is re-living the history of Israel. He is reliving the history of God’s people. The difference is that where they got it wrong, where they messed up, where they sinned. Jesus got it right. He lived this perfectly. He experienced the wilderness. Not only did he conquer the wilderness, but he also conquered sin, death and the devil through the cross and his resurrection three days latter.

This means that he not only knows what it is like to be there, but it means that we never have to face those experiences alone. Being in the wilderness is not easy, it is not much fun, but it is an experience that prepares us for what God has in store for us. It is an experience that will remove from us anything that we hold more closely than we do to our God.

And even when we are in the midst of it he is there. His love and grace and mercy and forgiveness, in Jesus are there. They sustain us. They feed us. They nourish us. They give us all the strength and security we need. And being strengthened and sustained by these things, knowing that Jesus is all that we need, we can boldly and confidently follow down the path where he is leading and guiding us. We may not know exactly where we are going, but we know that his hand is leading us and guiding us all along the way.

So when we find ourselves feeling a little dusty and tired from wondering we can learn from the experience of the Israelites in this story. That is why we gather every week. Not just to offer our thanks and praises to God, although we certainly do that. But also to receive the gifts that he so graciously pours out into our lives. His love and forgiveness and restoration that we have for the sake of Jesus. We gather to remember the way that God works in our lives, to receive the gifts he gives to us in the sacraments, and to recall his promises and his faithfulness. Because in remembering the ways that God works in our lives and the promises he gives to us, we will always find hope and comfort, no matter if we are in the wilderness or safe at home. Either way we can then always say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Amen.