Over the next few weeks, we will be reflecting together on our spiritual journey and God’s faithfulness. These are uncertain times and, like every generation that has gone before us, we are called to faith in God, hope for the future, and love for one another. This can be challenging when it feels like fear might overwhelm us and we can’t seem to control even the basics of life.

Our Lenten worship theme at St. Andrew UMC is entitled The Wilderness.

The wilderness can be a scary and disorienting place. It is desolate, there are few comforts, there are no roads. The key to survival in the wilderness is, first and foremost, finding the will to survive. We must find hope. Hope gives us courage to see steep terrain as an opportunity to climb higher. Hope gives us assurance that, although we are lost, we are not alone. Hope inspires us to see healing beyond our illness, peace beyond our conflict, joy beyond our grief.

When we developed this worship theme it was months before the current coronavirus pandemic. We didn’t know THIS would be one of our challenges…   but we know that trials and even tragedies arise unpredictably, strike hard, and leave us feeling lost and afraid, worried and apprehensive, maybe even angry and out of control. We can become imprisoned by our fears, worries, grief, and anger, immobilized by the threatening circumstances around us.

But we do not lose heart and we do not lose our way. The ancient Israelites relied on God’s promise of a homeland, of peace and plenty, to sustain them as they wandered in the dangerous wilderness for 40 years. This same God reminds us too that we are being led through a dangerous wilderness, but we also have a promise of peace and plenty to guide us.

As God was preparing the world for the birth of Jesus, God sent an angel to the priest Zechariah, to announce that his wife would give birth to a very special son, John. This John (John the Baptist) would go on to be a voice crying in the wilderness: “prepare the way of the Lord”. When John was born, Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us  that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear,  in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins.

By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:68-79 NRSV)

This of course is a prophecy not only about John but also about Jesus, the promised Messiah. I love the last two verses. The tender loving mercy of this promise-making and promise-keeping God will bring forth the dawn so that it breaks upon US, and give light to US, who sit in darkness and the shadow of death…   and guide OUR feet into the way of peace.

Even in THIS wilderness we are journeying through today, we have the promise of God in the person of Jesus. We have the tender loving mercy of God in the person of Jesus. We have the dawn and the light it brings in the person of Jesus. No darkness, no shadow, no death can keep us from His peace!