By Tom Thomas –
It is once again that time of the year! A time when we are called to enter into the Desert experience for the next forty days. We are called to go deep inside as we retreat from the world and the things we like to surround ourselves with. Till we reach Easter, it looks like a denial of the desires of the flesh to attune ourselves to hear God in our lives more. This is hard. What is the purpose of this? What are its origins?
To find out a bit more we turn to the Holy Bible. The Book of Numbers (20:5) describes the desert to us. “ … It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates and there is no water to drink.” In other words, a desert is a place where there is an absence of life. Yet it is through the desert that the Chosen People were led for a period of forty years in their journey towards the Promised Land. It was a period of initiation for them and orientation towards the Lord.
Looking at Ex 3:1-14, the desert is where the Lord appears to Moses first in the burning bush. The desert is also where the Lord gave His people the Ten Commandments, and establishes the covenant with them ( Ex 19-24). In this arid place, we see that His people are sustained by manna, quail, and water from the rock for the long period of time they were in the desert. Surely this increased their faith in Him. They moved away from the comforts of slavery in Egypt through the long period in the desert to the Promised Land.
What are the parallels we can draw in our life from this experience? Over the next forty days, if we make efforts to retreat into the desert by giving up things or experiences that take away our attention from Him, such as Social Media, WhatsApp, OTT, unnecessary meetings, or attachments, then our focus will be more clearly on Him. We will be able to hear His whispers in “sheer silence” as Elijah did in 1 Kgs 19:12. We need to spend this time in the desert, which is long and difficult but does have an ending finally. This time will no doubt be challenging as the very nature of the desert with its silence and forbidding landscape, echoes in our innermost being as trials and temptations. This is however a most important aspect of our path to salvation.
The Lord tests us during this desert period as Deut 8:2 says, “ Remember the long way that the Lord your God has led you in these forty years in the wilderness, in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.” Yet during this desert period, the Lord always watches over as Deut 8:4 says, “the clothes on your back did not wear out and your feet did not swell these forty years.”
We need to “Go” as the Lord told Abraham in Gen 12:1 into ourselves as the Hebrew translation of the verse suggests. The Bible also reveals the rebellion of the Chosen people in the desert, murmuring and grumbling against why they should undertake the hardships( Ex 14:11-12, 15:24, 16:2-3, 17:2-3, Num 12:1-2, 14:2-4, 16:3-4, 20:2-5, 21:4-5).
We find in the New Testament that Jesus too is driven into the desert before the start of His ministry (Mt 4: 1-11). Whether it is forty years or forty days, there is a time in the desert for the chosen people, Moses, Elijah, and Jesus. This is an intermediate period of time where we have to wait in patience and perseverance as we look towards Easter. Its important to not look back during this journey- it is tempting at times to look back to Egypt and what was left behind – else we cannot look forward and reach our destination towards Him.
We do need to travel light in this journey through the desert. Keeping the bare essentials only, looking inwards instead of outwards. Then we will be able to understand and decipher the presence of God as that great man of the desert John the Baptist did ( Mt 4:3-4), as himself says quoting Is 40:3 “ In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” Taking pointers from John the Baptist’s example of simple minimalistic living with regards to his food and clothing and the time he spent in the desert, let us too withdraw into ourselves for this period of Lent so we can come to recognize and hear the Lord as John the Baptist did.
As we can infer from these examples, we have so much to learn from the desert experience. A wonderful paradox: that a place so devoid of life can lead us to understand the very meaning of our own lives. Let us look forward to this time in the desert.
‘Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.’ – Anthony of Egypt