Matthew 3: 1-11


A Place of New Birth

Avoid the temptation to see the wilderness as an affliction to be avoided. For John the Baptist it was a blessing to be grasped. From the very beginning he arrives on the scene as a wilderness character — a loner. The Greek word for ‘wild honey’ (a0rroj) literally means ’belonging to the field’ and alongside locusts, camel’s hair and a leather belt suggests an ascetic. He would stand out as a wilderness character wherever he was. Independent. Strong opinions. All black and white, and no greys. 

So the axe goes right to the root of the tree as he chops down everything that has gone before. Nothing from the past is capable of dealing with the present. With a tough message he needs a tough pulpit and an audience brave enough, strong enough and in the right mood to know where they can get it and to go there. His presence in the wilderness is no accident. It is the necessary  backcloth to everything he has to say.

But John’s wilderness is neither dry nor barren. There is water in abundance for those prepared to respond to it. Whether he offers a foretaste or a reflection of an early Essene-type community which lived on the shores of the Dead Sea, often associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls, we cannot say but neither can the similarities be dismissed. 

There is more to this than a personal experience. The emphasis is not on what wilderness can do for an individual but on the capacity of the wilderness to touch whole communities. Whole groups and communities can be revivified and the water is the sign and symbol.

John’s preaching is a message for people consigned to the wilderness of life — for people on the margins from one who lives on the margins. It is a message for people whose driving force is not to be ‘number one’ and who have come to see that recognising the light and pointing to the light can sometimes be more valuable than striving to be that light. Therein lies the hope that dispels despair — hope that springs only from a true recognition of the reality of the wilderness. The end product is not a return to the old, nor even a reconstruction of the old but a renewal of the old — the same roots but blossoming in a different way.

© Alec Gilmore 2014