“The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.”
Thus begins today’s suggested reading from the Book of Exodus. The people of Israel had been led out of captivity in Egypt; they had been led through the waters of the Red Sea; and they were on their way to the Promised Land.
But they weren’t there yet.
And the journey that they were taking was not turning out to be an easy one. They were in the wilderness, wandering, unsure and uncertain where the necessities of life were to be found, questioning if Moses and Aaron actually knew what they were doing or where they were going. They felt lost, threatened, vulnerable, afraid.
In this text—and throughout the biblical tradition – it is important for us to realize that this image of the wilderness functions in both a geographical and in a metaphorical sense.
That is, the image of the wilderness was not confined to the stories of Moses and the Israelites 40 year sojourn after their exodus from Egypt.
The Psalmists looked to the wilderness as a time of great struggle yet great transformation – and ultimately, reason for praising God — in the history of the people of Israel.
As Psalm 105 celebrated –
He brought Israel out with silver and gold,
And there was no one among their tribes who stumbled.
Egypt was glad when they departed,
For dread of them had fallen upon it.
He spread a cloud for a covering,
And fire to give light by night.
They asked, and he brought quails,
And gave them food from heaven in abundance.
He opened the rock, and water gushed out;
It flowed through the desert like a river.
For he remembered his holy promise,
And Abraham, his servant.
So he brought his people out with joy,
His chosen ones with singing.
He gave them the lands of the nations,
And they took possession of the wealth of the peoples
That they might keep his statutes and observe his laws.
Praise the Lord!
Later prophets such as Isaiah used the image of the wilderness to envision a coming time of great uncertainty and difficulty, but one in which God’s power would be displayed – where a path would be found in the wilderness, on which the rough places would be made smooth, the twists straightened out, the valleys lifted up and the mountains brought low.
In all four of the Gospels, John the Baptist went out into the wilderness to call people to repentance in expectation of the coming of Christ. After his baptism by John, in the Jordan River, Jesus himself was driven out into the wilderness to be tempted at the beginning of his public ministry. Before Jesus did anything else, he had to go into the wilderness.
This fascination with the imagery of the wilderness has continued throughout the Christian spiritual tradition, and even into our own lives. For many of us, there can be a renewing power when we spend time in the creative but dangerous beauty of the wilderness – places of solitude, places of natural wonder, places of vulnerability, places of beauty.
In so many ways, the image of the wilderness touches something very deep in our spirits, our minds, our hearts.
And if we draw all of those “other” meanings of the wilderness into our reflections on today’s reading, we begin to realize that the biblical image of the wilderness that we encounter in today’s reading from Exodus chapter 16 may offer us profound lessons that are as relevant to our lives, even today, as they were to the ancient people of Israel wandering around in the desert.
Consider, after all, the strange irony that lay at the heart of the experience that is described in this particular passage.
In spite of God’s powerful provisions for them, they had not yet learned one of the most important spiritual lessons that they would have to learn –that the wilderness was not meant to lead to complaints, but to trust.
The wilderness, after all, was a place where they could no longer even pretend to be in control. It was the place in which they were reminded – again and again – that they were entirely dependent on God for everything. On their own, they could not find food to feed themselves, or water to drink, or protection from the dangers of the desert. What they needed was not a result of their own hard work, their own courageous decisions, nor any act of their own deserving.
They needed to trust in God.
And yet, as today’s text opens, we realize that they had not yet learned this basic yet difficult lesson. Difficulties were not met with a deepened trust in God, but with a renewed round of complaints.
In a certain way, their complaints take on an almost humourous dimension. “If only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Ah, God, if only. Yes, God, you’ve shown yourself to us; yes, you’re providing for us; yes, you’re guiding us, day and night; yes, you’re leading us and protecting us and liberating us and saving us and present with us…but if only you’d just killed us back in the good old days – back in the good old days when we were oppressed, enslaved, forced to serve the Pharaoh…you know, back in that golden age when we were desperately crying out for your help and for your intervention.
Maybe if you’d just killed us back then…well, maybe things would be better for us now.
We might chuckle at the experience of the Israelites in the wilderness…but we should be careful about laughing too hard.
Because the lesson that they had to learn, in the wilderness, is a lesson that each and every one of us has to learn, regardless of where we live or where we find ourselves.
We may not be in a geographical desert, but this does not mean that the wilderness is absent from our lives or from our experiences. Each and every one of us will have times when we will feel just as lost, just as uncertain, just as threatened, just as vulnerable, just as afraid as the wandering Israelites felt.
And what do we usually do when we find ourselves in such times?
Do we turn to God with a sense of trust and confidence that God continues to be with us, that God continues to be protecting us, that God continues to be worthy of our trust?
Or do we complain?
Oh God, if only. If only you would solve this problem for me, or make this answer clear, or show me what I am supposed to do to take care of myself, or take away this reason for stress, or remove the uncertainties from my life…then I will trust you.
If only you would take me back to some golden time in the past – which may not have been all that golden, but it sure seems to look good compared to what I am going through now. If only you would make everything right and clear…then I will trust you.
But that is not how trust works…which is what the people of Israel needed to learn. Real, true, faithful, trust does not find it origin in those times and experiences in our lives when everything is going well, when no problems confront us, when everything is secure, and certain and under our control.
Rather, trust finds its origin in those times and experiences in our lives when everything is not going well, when problems are all around us, when everything is insecure and uncertain and out of control…in other words, when we are in the wilderness.
Real trust begins when we turn ourselves away from doubt and fear and despair and complaints, and embrace instead to a deepened confidence in the power of the One who has promised never to leave us or abandon us, who has the power to provide for us in any and all circumstances, and who actually leads us into the wilderness so that we can be strengthened and renewed – not overwhelmed – in our relationship with God.
It was for that reason that the wilderness, in the history of the Israelite people, was ultimately seen as a time of liberation – liberation both from captivity in Egypt and from the illusion of their own self-sufficiency, a time of deepening their trust in God during a time when things did not seem to be going well; a time when they came to realize – in powerful ways – that God, all the while, was at work on their behalf.
And that same God continued to dwell with them, even when the wilderness was behind them – but invited them to remember the lessons of the wilderness when things seemed to be getting better. Of course, they – like all of us – quickly forgot those lessons.
When things started to get better, as they established themselves in the Promised Land, they began to turn away, falling into the worship of other gods and the tolerance of injustice and corruption. So they were led into the Babylonian exile, where they rediscovered God’s presence and promises. In their return from exile and in their re-establishment of their community, they were invited to renew their covenant with God, even though they were still subjugated to the power of foreign empires such as Persia, Greece and Rome; but even then, they found inspiration in the prophetic visions of a time when a descendant of the house of David would establish a kingdom of peace forever; in all of those times, good and bad, they were invited to learn to trust in the One who loved them.
Of course, the tragedy of the cross stands in the shadow of these lessons from the wilderness – because when the One who was sent to establish that kingdom, once and for all, finally was revealed, he was not met with trust and celebration, but rather with complaint and with crucifixion.
But just as God had been at work in the wilderness, so too was God at work on the cross. And just as the image of the wilderness was transformed from a place of emptiness and threat to a place of liberation and hope, so too was the cross transformed from a tool of brutality and hatred into a sign of hope and of life.
Because that is the way that God works.
The wilderness – and the cross — have a lot to teach us – about learning to trust when trust is all we have to go on; about learning to give thanks, even when the circumstances of our lives seem difficult and desperate; about learning to remember that none of us are self-sufficient but are dependent on God for all that we need to sustain and nourish our lives – which means, ultimately, that everything that we have is evidence of grace.
So when any of us finds ourselves in the wilderness, we do well not to lose hope, not to get stuck in the murmurs and complaints. Instead, we do well to allow such experiences to be opportunities to learn what it means to trust, to give thanks in all circumstances, and to live in hope.
For it may be in those times that we begin to see – most clearly — the power and the grace of God at work.
