The Holy Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness, not just into it. The Spirit was with Jesus throughout the experience. The wilderness is a traditional place of encounter with God and our inner selves.
In biblical tradition there are many stories of people encountering God in the wilderness:
- Abram met God in the desert and was given the covenant and a new name;
- Hagar met an angel in the wilderness who promised that her son would be a great nation;
- Jacob dreamt of a ladder and wrestled with an angel in the desert;
- People went out to John the Baptist in the wilderness of the Jordan;
- Jesus went out to pray alone in deserted places.
The wilderness, the desert, is a powerful metaphor for a liminal place, a place of outer limits, on the edge of what is possible for human survival.
Wilderness is a place of extremes. It can be a place of scorching days and of frigid nights, a place of visions and of illusions. It can be a place of solitude and a place of loneliness.
The wilderness can be harsh. It can also be a place of austere beauty.
There is an outer, physical wilderness that we may choose to enter. And there is the inner wilderness that often comes to us unbidden. We sometimes find ourselves in the wilderness without warning.
A diagnosis or a loss can catapult me into an inner wilderness for which I have no map, no ready guide. Some people have brief stays in the wilderness. Others spend years in deserted places, making their home there. A few people seek out the wilderness and love it. Others are driven there.
At times in my life I have been thrust into a wilderness not of my choosing. I have found myself in a foreign inner landscape without a guide, with no idea how to move through the strangeness. It’s hard to settle into an experience you haven’t chosen. But it is possible, and gradually a path through the wilderness becomes clear. The path is always through the wilderness, not around it.
Sometimes the way through the wilderness involves letting go of habits and attitudes that once served a purpose but now are keeping me from new life. At times, the way requires taking on a practice that will help me become clearer about God’s call and presence in my life.
Whether we resist it or embrace it, wilderness does not leave us unchanged, because God meets us there. And God’s presence always transforms us somehow.
Benedictine Priory of St. Mary 