Go to the Nearby Wilderness This Advent
In the middle of Advent, we encounter John the Baptist in the desert. In fact, every year, Anglicans devote half of Advent to the prophet of the wilderness, John the Baptist. Even the 2019 Book of Common Prayer‘s collect for the Third Sunday in Advent references the prophets:
O Lord Jesus Christ, you sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Grant that the minister and stewards of your mysteries may likewise make ready your way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at your second coming to judge the world, we may be found a people acceptable in your sight; for with the Father and the Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Collect for the Third Sunday in Advent, 2019 Book of Common Prayer
Comparing Lent and Advent
To most of us, Lent is the most obvious season of the Church’s year to associate with the desert—a full 40 days and then some — to seek the Lord through prayer and fasting, remembering Christ’s own 40 days in the wilderness. However, we should not miss the desert days of Advent. You cannot take the Advent pilgrimage and avoid the wilderness.
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Whereas Lent leads us to deny ourselves and take up our cross, Advent leads us to enter the wilderness so we are prepared for the coming of Christ’s kingdom in all its fullness. The desert is a station in the King’s royal procession. John the Baptist echoes Isaiah’s prophecy in the desert: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” (Matthew 3:3).
The Purpose of the Wilderness
The desert, of course, is not only significant for John the Baptist’s message of repentance. When John the Baptist appears in the desert, he evokes Moses’ presence with Israel in the desert. When God saved his people from Egyptian oppression, he brought them through the desert. The desert was the place where Israel would learn that the deliverer God could be trusted. The desert was the place where God would strip away all the ideas, the idols, and the identity they had in Egypt.
You need the desert to learn how to leave the old world behind. That’s what the desert is for. It is not home, but it prepares you for home. The wilderness prepares you to meet the king.
The Anglican writer Paul-Gordon Chandler offers a vivid sense of greeting a king in the wilderness, drawing on his years of living in the Middle East. In his book Songs in Waiting: Spiritual Reflections on Christ’s Birth, Chandler notes a Middle Eastern custom of preparing roads before a king’s journey. Roads would be cleaned, new flowers planted, and people would wait for their leader to pass by.
What could this mean for me in the United States? How can I live faithfully, enter the desert, practice repentance, and prepare for the coming of King Jesus this Advent?
The Wilderness Nearby
I don’t want to spiritualize the desert straight away. The desert is a real place. Landscapes form the soul. Places matter. But when I look out my window, I see woodlands, not sand.
As I meditate on the importance of wilderness places, I’ve often found inspiration in Celtic Christians in Britain and Ireland, who understood that their desert was the sea. I don’t live near a desert or a sea, but woodland areas and mountains are my local wilderness. These are the local, rugged places of solitude and silence where I can listen to the voice of the Lord.
In The Unsettling of America, Wendell Berry contends that the wilderness trains one in humility, that “by understanding accurately his proper place in Creation, a man may be made whole.” Wilderness landscapes shape the soul, purifying one’s vision and perception so that one returns home with a renewed commitment to virtue. Berry notes,
Returning from the wilderness, [a man] becomes a restorer of order, a preserver. He sees the truth, recognizes his true heir, honors his forebears and his heritage, and gives his blessing to his successors. He embodies the passing of human time, living and dying within the human limits of grief and joy.
Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
These isolated landscapes prepare us for both holy living and holy dying. We need the wilderness to prepare for the Lord’s advent.
Spend an Hour in the Wilderness
There is a mystery of encountering God within the wilderness. Sometimes he speaks words we could not hear in the noisy world we inhabit; sometimes he speaks nothing at all. Either way, going out to meet the Lord in the wilderness trains us in faithfulness and intensifies our communion with Christ.
It would be ideal if you could take an Advent retreat for a whole weekend, but most people don’t have that time with many December commitments. A weekend retreat may not be possible, but that doesn’t mean that you’re unable to enter a local wilderness and listen to the Lord’s voice.
Even one hour in a nearby wilderness can center your soul in the Lord’s presence, to sharpen your perception about what really matters in this life. Even one hour can bear great fruit towards holy living and holy dying.
My Experience in the Wilderness
I have made it a priority to find local places of solitude in the twelve years I have served my parish. I actually believe this is part of my pastoral work—to enter the wilderness and to know our wilderness places well enough to commend them to others. The conservationist Wes Jackson advocates the virtue of “becoming native to one’s place.” I believe becoming native to my parish means knowing and inhabiting local places of solitude nearby. If I’m seeking only spiritual renewal on a retreat in a remote location, I will slowly come to believe that God can renew my soul only when I leave my hometown.
I have great affection for an arboretum only 20 minutes from my doorstep. I remember several years ago praying the Phos Hilaron at sundown on a secluded bench there. It was the first time I had been able to worship in months, after being unable to pray. That bench has become like the stone of Ebenezer for me, a physical memory that God will be faithful through the seasons of spiritual darkness.
These days, if I only have an hour, I know where I can go. Ten minutes from my house, I walk along a wooded pathway. I have entered the quietness of those woods, where the white oaks and hickory trees lift my eyes and heart to the beauty and presence of the Lord. Those woods are healing my soul from distraction.
Your Experience in the Wilderness
Become native to the wilderness in your parish. All you need is a secluded space nearby—even a copse of trees will do—to go out and meet the Lord in a local wilderness. It does not require a costly or lengthy excursion. Just a coat (if needed), a camping chair (maybe), and an hour (more if you have the time). You’re ready to walk out the door.
When you get there, simply ask our Lord one question, the question of repentance: where would you have me change my life for your sake?
And there, in a wilderness nearby—a wilderness to which you belong—listen for the still, small voice of the Lord who calls you home.
Image by from Tom Larsen, courtesy of Unsplash. Edited by Peter Johnston.
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