Into the Desert
Later this week, we will remember the death of John the Baptist at the command of King Herod Antipas. John was a speaker of truth, bravely calling out the sins of Israel’s rulers while at the same time leading a spiritual awakening of its people through preaching and a baptism of water, readying the way for Our Lord’s mission on earth. It was for this steadfastness to the truth that he was persecuted; it was for offending the powerful with this truth that he was murdered.
The bravery of martyrs can frighten us when we put ourselves in their places. We wipe our brow with relief when we think that we do not live in such times. But even if we do not live in a time and place when a king may chop off heads to please his court, we certainly do live in a time when our faith in Christ and His teachings is met with scorn. How many times have each of us sidestepped a moment to witness to the Truth when there is even a hint of challenge or discomfort from those around us?
How can we improve the courage in our heart? It is an impossible task if our faith is not a living thing within every part of our being. The only antidote to fear is such a living faith.
That’s all well and good, but such a statement may sound like just words in the wind. So how do we really integrate the life of God within us? There are many paths in spiritual life to ascend God’s mountain, but today, let’s look to John the Baptist for one example.
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Imagine if you will, a young man, perhaps not old enough to yet grow a full beard. His father a holy man of his nation and his mother a woman of prophetic faith, he feels a call to leave the home of his childhood to go seek the Lord. As any good Jewish youth, he heard the words of Scripture his whole life, read them, memorized them. But that was not enough, there was a pull on his heart to a deeper relationship with Yahweh. And that pull led him to the desert.
He wouldn’t be the first nor the last to walk out of the life of civilization and into the ultimate solitude of the desert. The prophets before him did so. His cousin Jesus would do so. The so-called desert fathers would do so over the next few centuries.
Imagine again, this young man finding a cave to shelter in for the coming years. Water is scarce and, as the Gospel tells us, he survived by eating insects and honey. He spends his days foraging, but in every moment, he reflects on God. He recalls the scriptures of his people and speaks to Yahweh in prayer. All is stillness but for the sounds of the wind, the sand, and the rustling of desert scrub. And like Elijah before him, he listens for the voice of God in these things.
He wrestles with himself on a daily basis. Thoughts of what he left behind plague him; fantasies of what might have been beset him. His body rebels. It wants hearty food and plenty of water. Maybe even some wine. A woman to keep him company.
But he perseveres in this strange call of his. He set out to hear the voice of God and have it written on his heart in such a way that the Word would be the only sustenance He needed. Over time, it becomes the only thing he wants, because it has become part of his very being.
Then one night, sitting before a meager fire, he roasts his locusts and rests his tired limbs. He contemplates the flame and recalls that a moment long ago as told in Exodus. He thinks of when Moses encountered Yahweh for the first time in a revelation so profound that Israel’s first prophet covered his face before a burning bush. The night is still. The man hears no sounds other than the crackle of the fire. No insects chirp, no wild dog barks in the distance. Then comes a breeze from nowhere that stirs the fire. Something stirs in the man’s heart too.
He looks up at a star on the horizon, one that his mother told him about many times. It is the star that heralded his cousin’s birth. As his mother would tell the story, this cousin would be the Messiah. He remembers the message that the angel gave to his father, the message that he himself, John, was supposed to “bring back many of the Israelites to the Lord their God.”
This message had frightened him when he was a boy. If he was honest with himself, when he left home, part of him had hoped that he would not have to return to such a heavy mission. But he was no longer a boy. This life in the desert had purified him such that God was everything to him.
And that day, under the gaze of his cousin’s star, amid the breeze, and in front of the fire, John the Baptist knew that he was ready to go back to his people and proclaim the Word of God to them. They had gone astray, and their loving God wanted them back yet again. But this time would be different than in the times of the prophets of old. For God Himself was going to be coming among them. It was his job to get them ready.
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The above, of course, is just a meditation of the imagination. But I think it is helpful to reflect on how “going into the desert” can strengthen our love and commitment to God and prepare us to fulfill the mission Christ gave us to be the salt of the earth. John the Baptist could not have followed his call to proclaim the truth to his countrymen if he had not already been filled with the Lord. He had to live a life in the desert and trim away all that was not of God to make himself ready for such an undertaking.
So how is John’s life an example for us? Obviously, most of us are not called to the life of a hermit, let alone to one in a literal desert. But if we are to stand faithful in this fallen world and witness to Truth, we cannot do so without God becoming so intricate into our lives and very bodies and souls. We must prune away the parts of us that are not of Him and amplify that which is. The more that God is our one and only, the more that the fear of being a witness to Him will disappear.“He must increase, but I must decrease.”