Today, we stand in the wilderness. Like John the baptizer and like Isaiah the prophet, we stand in the wilderness that is human life. Here, the words of Isaiah ring in our ears, “All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades.” And if we are honest with ourselves, and if we face up to reality with bravery and courage, then we see that to be true.
In the wilderness of human existence today, we see that life withers and fades. We see that our existence is one of mortality - that all life ends in death. Despite what my friend condemns as the “consumerist ecstasy” of the Christmas season, it is hard to avoid this quite depressing fact. The days get shorter and all life ends in death. We see the truth of this wilderness all around us. In nursing homes - when we visit friends and family and see what time does to individuals, how personalities wither and the will to live fades. In this wilderness we wonder why it is that people suffer, and particularly why they suffer, and eventually die, alone.
We see the truth of this wilderness in the news. We see cities like Oakland, California, Ferguson, Missouri, New York, Phoenix, Arizona and Cleveland, Ohio - where white police officers are so overwhelmed by the wilderness of their own mortality - where they are so afraid of themselves being killed - that they kill black boys and men, instead. In this wilderness we wonder why it is that black Americans suffer, and particularly why they suffer, and eventually die, and in the case of Michael Brown in Ferguson, are left dead on the street for four hours, alone.
We see the truth of this wilderness in our institutions. We see that all life ends, even the lives of institutions, as long-standing businesses close, as universities and colleges close, and even as congregations close. We see commitments to institutions wither and participation fade. In this wilderness, we wonder why all of the time and energy people put into starting the institutions hasn’t been enough to keep things going, and why they struggle and eventually die.
And so today, we stand in the wilderness, in need of comfort. And I don’t think it’s that we need comfort in the face of death. After all, physics and the law of thermodynamics determines that, because of entropy, everything eventually runs down. Everything eventually, physically, at the very molecular and atomic level, runs out of energy. On a rational level, we all sort of understand why everything dies. But on a spiritual level, it’s different. We need comfort because it can all seem so... meaningless. What is the meaning of death? What is the meaning of these kinds of lonely and suffering deaths? Yes, we all die, and institutions die, but what’s the point?
And the question that lurks at the very back of our minds, the question that pops up in the middle of the night when we can’t sleep, the question that nags at us as the sun is going down and night comes at 4:30 in the afternoon, the question that we can’t ignore when we are visiting people in the psychiatric wing of the nursing home, or watching the news, or contemplating the future of the church, the question that we don’t want to ask out loud is: what if there is no point? What if death just happens? What if it’s all meaningless, and we are here alone and there is no point at all?
If we are honest, and brave, and courageous, we acknowledge that we are in the wilderness, and that we are alone. Everything is grass, its constancy is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades. Life ends in death.
And yet. “Comfort, O comfort my people,” says God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid.” “One is coming,” says John the baptizer. “One is coming” into the wilderness. One is coming who is with us in suffering and death. One is coming who embraces the same wilderness of mortality that we must endure. Indeed, one has already come.
It is easy to overlook, in the mad dash for decorations and presents and celebrations (and really tasty chocolate and cookies), that Christmas is not simply about a cute little baby being born. Christmas is not simply about the miracle of life taking place in a cold stable in the middle of nowhere - yay! The Christmas story is, as my favourite blogger wrote this week, about God sending Jesus to be born into mortality, into wilderness. It is about God taking on this human life in order to live as we do. The Christmas story is about God entering the wilderness to experience what it is like to be mortal. To suffer, to anguish, to see death, and even to experience the same questions that we ask: is there a point? If we proclaim that Jesus Christ was fully human and fully divine, we proclaim that God experienced the very same terror and solitude that accompanies our questions of what if there is no point to all of this. Jesus Christ would have asked, like we do when faced with the death of others, what if there is no meaning to death? This is a question humans ask, and Christ was fully human, asking this question with us. When we tell the Christmas story, we are remembering, and honouring, that God has come into our wilderness. “Here is your God,” says the prophet Isaiah. God became flesh, and lived with us, and suffered with us, and dies with us. We are not alone in our wilderness. We are not alone as we wither and fade. We are not alone as we die. Jesus Christ, the incarnate, bodily Word of God, is with us.
So, we do not suffer alone, and we do not die alone. We are not in the wilderness alone. But is it enough? As an important Catholic theologian once pointed out, if you’ve fallen down a well, it’s all fine and good to have some company while you’re down there suffering and trying to get out, but it’s much better to have someone up out of the well fetching you a ladder than it is to have someone down at the bottom of the well with you, keeping you company but just as powerless as you. Is it enough simply to say that Christ is with us in this wilderness and leave it at that?
The Christmas story alone is not enough. Knowing that we have company in this wilderness is not enough. Fortunately, the Christmas story does stand by itself. The Christmas story actually ends, not with Epiphany and the arrival of the three magi, but with Easter. We celebrate Christmas because it ends in Easter. We tell the Christmas story of God coming to earth to be one of us because the death of this one born in a manger is not the end. Because of Easter, and because of resurrection, death is not the end. We are not stuck in death forever. We are not stuck in the wilderness forever. The wilderness of human life is not permanent. It is temporary. Highways are made into wildernesses in order to prepare them for new life. Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine was born into the wilderness in order to transform that wilderness from a place where death is the end, to a place where death is only the entrance into new life. Our psalm for today reminds us, “The Lord will give what is good.” Death ends in resurrection. Death has meaning in resurrection.
Yes, today, we stand in the wilderness. And the suffering and death we encounter in nursing homes is awful. And the suffering and death of black males to the South is devastating. And the suffering and death of institutions is heart-shaking. But Jesus Christ came into this wilderness as a baby, and will come again. God is with you in this wilderness, and God has transformed mortality and death into the entrance to new life. The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God - whom Christians believe to be Jesus Christ - will stand forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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