Isaiah 43:16-21

Rev. Stephen H. Wilkins

Georgetown Presbyterian Church

March 25, 2007

When we first moved to West Texas, it took some getting used to. We had left a place where there are trees that change color in the fall, where there are hills and streams and lakes; and so it was somewhat of a shock when we encountered wind and dust and tumbleweeds. In terms of the physical environment, we went from a paradise, to a wilderness.

Our scripture lesson from the 43^rd chapter of Isaiah speaks to a people in the wilderness. The people of Israel had experienced God’s judgment for their unfaithfulness. The Babylonians had attacked and conquered Jerusalem, and the people had been taken into exile. The Israelites found themselves in the wilderness.

There is a harshness to the wilderness. As the term itself implies, there is a wildness to the wilderness; it is an untamed place. The biblical image of the wilderness is that of the desert. The terrain is rugged and unforgiving. Very little will grow there, and what wildlife you see has to struggle to survive. It is dry, arid, and the heat is oppressive. "But it’s a dry heat," you might say. Well, an oven is also dry heat!

You don’t have to be geographically located in the wilderness in order to experience the wilderness. Because wilderness is not defined so much by geography, as it is by the frame of mind and by the things going on in your life. I promise you, here in the middle of the paradise that is the Low Country, there are plenty of people who find themselves living in the wilderness. Try telling someone who’s miserable at work and desperately wants out, that they’re not in the wilderness. Try telling someone whose marriage is in trouble, that they’re not in the wilderness. Try telling the awkward kid at school, the one that everyone laughs at, that they’re not in the wilderness. Try telling the people who struggle with addiction, that they’re not in the wilderness. Try telling someone who has been battling cancer or other debilitating diseases for months, even years, that they’re not in the wilderness.

The truth is, even in this beautiful place, with the colors of spring splattered throughout the bushes and the trees, people find themselves in the wilderness. That’s because wilderness is more than a place. It is a condition of the soul.

People don’t usually set out to enter the wilderness on purpose. We simply find ourselves in the wilderness. The wilderness is more of an interruption or a detour than it is part of our original travel plans. Sometimes we find ourselves in the wilderness because of mistakes or bad decisions we’ve made. That was the case for the Israelites, and that is the case for some of you who are in your own personal wilderness right now. Sometimes the wilderness simply ambushes us, even if we’ve been living right and making the right decisions.

In the end, the reason that you find yourself in the wilderness is not as important as is the purpose that you can make of your wilderness experience. For the truth is, wilderness can become a wonderful thing. Interruptions and detours in life can prove to be the best things that could have happened to us.

Don’t you know that the Israelites had a keen understanding of what could happen in the wilderness? For after they had been delivered from slavery in Egypt, the Lord led them through the wilderness for forty years—FORTY YEARS—before they were allowed to enter into the Promised Land. And I assure you that not one of those people who wandered for forty years didn’t wish that they could have entered the Promised Land sooner. I assure you that not one of those people who wandered for forty years didn’t wonder if death weren’t more merciful than battling the heat and the dust and the snakes and scorpions day after day after day.

Yet the generations that followed would look back on that time in the wilderness as the formative years of God’s chosen people. It was the time in the wilderness when the people learned what it meant to trust God and to walk with God day by day. It was the years in the wilderness that helped them understand what faith really is.

You see, the wilderness is the place where souls are shaped. Nobody who enters the wilderness will come out the same as when they entered. Even if we are in the wilderness as a judgment for something that we may have done, judgment is not the final purpose of the wilderness. The purpose and the goal of any wilderness experience is the strengthening of our faith and our relationship with God.

That’s why Isaiah proclaims to the people in the wilderness, Thus says the Lord…, because God comes to us in the wilderness. God does not take the wilderness away, but he does make a way through the wilderness. It is God who brings the water into the wilderness, to transform the wilderness.

Can you hear what he’s saying? Can you hear him telling you that there is hope even in the wilderness, because God is calling out to you? There are two things in the verses from Isaiah that I want to lift out for our examination today.

The first thing is that in the wilderness God tells us not to look back. "Forget the former things, do not dwell in the past," says the Lord. Forget the former things… At first that sounds a bit odd, doesn’t it, especially when the description of the Lord in the prior verses uses language that emphasize the mighty acts of God when he parted the Red Sea and then closed it up again on the Pharaoh’s army. How can God ask us to forget the former things?!

It is a selective forgetting that is commanded here. The emphasis is on the not dwelling in the past. Remember what God has done. Remember the ways that God has acted with power and might. But don’t live in the past, and don’t pigeon-hole God into acting in the same way that he did in the past. Instead, remember what God has done as a way of knowing who God is.

God only split the waters of the Red Sea one time. When we are told to forget the former things, we are told not to expect another parting of the Red Sea. But we remember the Red Sea, because even though we don’t expect another parting of the waters, we can expect that God will act again and again with power and mercy to deliver us. Forget the former things, says the Lord; do not dwell on the past, because neither the future nor the present will ever look like the past again.

The first church I served as pastor was a small congregation in rural North Carolina. Back in 2001 I went back to celebrate with them their 225^th anniversary as a congregation. In the five years that had transpired since I had been there as their pastor, much had changed. They had remodeled their education building, added on a fellowship hall and kitchen, and they had installed a beautiful playground. It was a festive and celebrative atmosphere. As I was commenting on the playground to one of the longtime members, I noticed the tears in her eyes. I thought they must be tears of pride and joy, but instead she shook her head and remarked how things were so different from the way they had been back in the glory days--about 20 years prior. She was in exile, and she would remain that way as long as she wanted things to be the way they were long ago.

Remember not the former things, says the Lord…

Don’t dwell on the past, says the Lord, because behold, I am about to do a new thing—do you not perceive it? Which brings us to the second point: as you stop looking back, start looking ahead.

You see, the memory of the past is not meant to keep us living in the past or longing for the past. Anna Carter Florence is a professor of homiletics at Columbia Seminary outside of Atlanta. In reference to this exhortation to forget the former things, she puts this spin on it: "Don’t let your imagination be closed off by what has come before." You see, the purpose of our remembering is not to expect that the future will be the same as the past; rather, the memory of the past is to point us to a future, a future laden with hope and anticipation of what God has yet to do.

The truth is, even in the wilderness there are signs of life; you just have to look for them. Most experts on the desert ecosystems will tell you that beneath the surface the desert is really teeming with signs of life; you just have to look for them. Sometimes all it takes is a little water to transform the dry and barren desert into an oasis.

There is a short period of time in West Texas just as winter is transitioning into spring. The rains come, and before the temperature gets too high the conditions are just right for the wildflowers to burst forth in a beautiful array of colors. The countryside is splattered with bright yellows and reds and greens and oranges.

For eleven months out of the year, you would never suspect that such beauty could be found in such a rugged, unforgiving place. But all along the seeds and the roots are there; they’re just awaiting the right conditions.

It is in the wilderness that God tells us, "I am about to do a new thing—do you not perceive it?" It is a call to focus our eyes, not on the past, but on the now and into the future. It is a call to expect great things from God.

Recently we’ve been adding a new element to our staff meetings here at the church. In addition to talking about the things that are on the calendar, I have asked each staff member to identify at least one way in which he or she has witnessed God at work in the ministry of the church during the past week. The purpose of this little exercise is to remind ourselves that God is always at work among us; it’s up to us to open our eyes and see what God is doing, and let our reflections influence the way we look ahead in our planning and our preparations for ministry.

God is always doing a new thing among us! Do you not perceive it?

In all of life, but maybe even more so in the wilderness, God is calling us to open our eyes and anticipate new things. And during this season of Lent, which is more often marked by calls to self-reflection and repentance, isn’t it a refreshing word to us, to expect new things? …Because our God is the God of new things!

Amen.