10th March 2024 

Wilderness Wonderings (3)

In the fairy tale "Red Riding Hood", the heroine is told "Don't go into the forest". There is good reason for this. The forest, in medieval times, is the place of lawlessness, the place where outcasts, bandits and criminals hide and the normal social conventions cease to hold sway. For first-century Jews, the wilderness carries similar resonance. Bad things happen in the wilderness - for example in the story of the Good Samaritan where the traveller is set upon by bandits. We don't choose to go out into the wilderness.

For although we have been considering some of the positive aspects of wilderness, we should not neglect to remember that the wilderness is also a place of pain. In the Old Testament, David is forced, twice in his life, to flee to the wilderness - once to escape Saul who wants to kill him, and once to escape his own son Absalom who has rebelled against him. We can only imagine the loss, the heartbreak of these times, the pain of broken relationships, the anxiety as David and his supporters hide out in caves, unsure if they will ever again be welcomed in ordinary society.

When we are in a place of pain, anxiety, heartbreak, we might feel that we have been thrown into such a wilderness. It's a desolate, empty space where few but our most loyal friends or family will follow us. It's a painful space, where we are confronted by deep and dark emotions of grief and fear, where the present is bleak and the future uncertain.

From his place of heartbreak, loss and pain, David wrote many of the psalms, songs and prayers which we still use in worship today. His psalms of lament do not shrink from questioning God, crying out to God, complaining to God. And yet, somehow, within the wilderness, within the place of pain, David is able to write these words, some of the best-known in Scripture. 

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil;
for you are with me; your rod and staff comfort me." (Psalm 23)

David discovered God's presence in the place of pain, loss, confusion and grief. I pray that we may know the comfort of God's presence in the wildernesses we face.