The Light Has Come: A Desert Experience

I know of a man recently excommunicated from his church; his was stripped of his church membership and told not to attend the church for several months. His pastor told him that he needed a “desert experience.”

What do you think the pastor had in mind?

Isaiah 40:3-5


Commentary

v3  a voice of one calling in the desert. There are no quotation marks in Hebrew, so is this:

A voice of one calling, “In the desert prepare the way ...”

or

A voice of one calling in the desert, “Prepare the way ...” ?

That is, are we to go to the desert to prepare, or is the voice calling from the desert?


v4  the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. A better translation is probably, the rough ground shall become as level ground, the rugged places as a plain. The second translation makes the transformation more subjective. That is, the rough places are still rough; however, our experience of the rough spots changes.


Application


This is one of the key Bible texts for justifying a desert experience. (What would be some of the others?) Some of the 3rd and 4th-Century Church Fathers, called the Desert Fathers, spent years or decades in the desert trying to flee the crush of worldly demands and pursue the still, small voice of God’s call on their lives.


Anthony Thomas of the Catholic News Agency wrote an article called The Desert Experience: Interior and Exterior Silence which begins:

Without fully realizing it, we are constantly surrounded by noise. Our homes are saturated with television, and our cars with music. Even walks outside are accompanied by the ipod. If we are not careful, what seems like an innocuous trait of society can be a significant block to our spiritual lives.
“In order to hear the voice of God, one has to have silence in one's soul and to keep silence; not a gloomy silence but an interior silence; that is to say, recollected in God.” — St. Faustina

On one hand, the Desert Fathers desired to be like John the Baptist—literally being voices in the desert, calling the busy crowds to repentance and abandoning the ways of the world.


On the other hand, the Desert Fathers came to realize that the real desert was not the outside environment but the interior of the souls. For the Jews, and the early Christians, the desert—the wilderness—was the place where jackals prowled and demons lurked. The wilderness was a place of disorder, confusion, trial, and temptation. The desert wilderness on the outside was simply a picture of the barren, disordered, and confused portion of one’s soul. It is no small wonder that Jesus’ temptation was during his 40-day desert experience! Thus the Desert Fathers sought to prepare a way for the Lord in the deserts within their souls. Preparing a straight path for God entailed living forthrightly, tearing down the bad habits and building up the good habits, thereby preparing one’s heart for a life-changing encounter with God.


Points to Ponder


The relevance for Advent should be obvious: we are surrounded by noise; confounded by busy-ness; saturated with television, internet, and radio. But in order to hear God during this season, we need more than ever to have silence in our soul. This is what Advent devotions are intended to inculcate. Moreover, the secular Christmas season is a wilderness—chaotic, confounding voices that distract us and tempt us. How would it be this year to focus on Christ instead of the trappings of Christmas?


PS - As far as what the excommunicated man’s pastor had in mind, I believe the intent was for the man to have some breathing space in order to reorder his life without having to deal with shame, accusations, and gossip at church. The intention of the desert experience was to help him silence the voices and focus on listening to God.