|
Friends,
in today’s Gospel John the Baptist identifies himself as “the voice of
one crying out in the desert.” How often the great heroes of the
Biblical revelation have to spend time in the desert: Abraham, Moses,
John the Baptist, Paul. Even Jesus himself spends forty days and nights
in the desert before commencing his ministry.
They
have to wait through a painful time, living a stripped-down life,
before they are ready. What does the desert symbolize? Confrontation
with one’s own sin; seeing one’s dark side; a deep realization of one’s
dependency upon God; an ordering of the priorities of one’s life; a
simplification, a getting back to basics. It means any and all of these
things.
But
the bottom line is that they are compelled to wait, during a time and
in a place where very little life seems to be on offer. But it is
precisely in such deserts that the flowers bloom. Moses becomes a great
leader; Abraham is the father of many nations; Joseph becomes the savior
of his people; John the Baptist is the forerunner of the Messiah; Paul
is the apostle to the Gentiles—all of this flowering was made possible
by the desert.
| 
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment