6th April 2025
Into the Wilderness: a Place of Restoration
Most of us can probably remember being in a situation where everything feels hopeless - our hopes and dreams come to nothing, the security of our world shattered. Sometimes, we recognise, this may be in part or whole due to our own actions (or inaction). Sometimes, life throws disasters at us that we simply could not foresee or prevent. We need only think of the people of Myanmar, following the devastation of last week's earthquake to know how quickly and unpredictably tragedy can strike.
In 597BC, the Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, and its inhabitants were forcibly carried off into exile - away from their land, the land God had promised them, away from their temple, the heart of their worship, away from their homes, their livelihoods. "By the rivers of Babylon," reads Psalm 137, "we sat and wept when we remembered Zion". The prophet Ezekiel is taken by the Spirit to the exiles by the river Chebar and recounts, in Ezekiel 3, that he "sat there among them, stunned, for seven days."
The time of exile was a huge national trauma for Israel - a time of desolation and grief for what had been lost, a time of alienation from all that they held dear. It was a time when they had to confront the parts of their individual and national identity they might have preferred not to look at too closely. It was a time of mourning, a time of horror.
And yet, to the people of Israel in the desolation of exile there comes an extraordinary word from God. This is not the end, God says to them. I am still with you, even here. I have you by the hand. I have not abandoned you. Even the wilderness, the desolate place, will rejoice, blossom and burst into song. Even the desert will break forth into springs of water. And there, in the wilderness, you will see the new thing I am doing among you. (Isaiah 35, 40 onwards).
Into the wilderness, God speaks startling words of hope restored. For God is present in the wilderness places, and, for the God who made everything from nothing, it's a small thing to make flowers bloom in the desert. For those of us in the desert place today, we can take heart. God promises "I am with you", and "I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." (Isaiah 43). The place of desolation becomes the place of restoration.
