Trusting God in the Desert
Trusting God in the Desert
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent – April 2, 2020
In exploring the desert experience this week, we have drawn parallels between the desert and where we find ourselves in dealing with COVID-19 . . . physical distanced and separated from others, with altered routines, and with many of our usual coping strategies no longer available to us. We’ve talked about our tendency to seek an escape from the difficulty that is right before us. The fight or flight syndrome is real . . . right now, flight is not an option . . . while our best fight against this enemy is to stay home and do nothing that feels productive.
Psychologists talks about escapism as a desire or behavior to ignore, evade, or avoid reality. Some of our escapism takes the form of some physical action . . . we go on a shopping spree, we travel, we drink excessively . . . we actually DO something to ignore, evade, or avoid reality.
Some of our escapism is mental or emotional . . . we withdraw . . . we isolate mentally and emotionally, as well as physically . . . we distract ourselves.
Then there is Jesus, who was faithful to his own desert experience of the Crucifixion. A part of him wanted the “cup to pass from him” . . . and certainly he could have escaped the cross in other ways. But he stayed faithful to his connection to Abba . . . faithful to God’s purpose . . . faithful even in the “godforsakenness” of his own desert experience (Charles Cummings’ phrase).
Cummings speaks to this in today’s excerpt from Spirituality and the Desert Experience.
God guides his people through the desert. He will never permit me to be tried beyond my strength, or to experience desertedness and emptiness beyond my limits of endurance. And it is God who sets the limits of my endurance and who gives me the grace to accept and cooperate with my desert experience. So much am I dependent on divine grace to perform acts leading to salvation, that it is only by his grace that I can respond to him with loving acceptance and trust. It is by the power of God’s grace and his Holy Spirit present in me that I can say “Yes” to his apparent absence in my desert experience.
Jesus died on a cross outside the city, an outcast, rejected by his own people and apparently also by his own Father. Both Matthew and Mark report that Jesus spoke at least the opening words of Psalm 22 as he hung on the cross: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? Which means, My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” [Mk. 15:34; cf. Mt. 27:46]. This cry was wrung from the anguished depths of Jesus’ heart at a moment that might be called his ultimate desert experience. Jesus knew that his Father was not distant but close at hand. Yet his Father would not intervene, would not come to the rescue in a show of power. Jesus felt abandoned and forsaken by the God whose faithful love endures forever [Ps. 136, refrain]. Only Luke’s gospel tells us of Jesus’ other word from the cross, borrowed from Psalm 36. Here is not the tormented cry of a despairing man but an announcement of loving trust: “Jesus uttered a loud cry and said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ After he said this, he expired” [Lk. 23:46]. At that ultimate moment, Jesus responded to his desert experience with a cry of loving, trusting acceptance that also came from the anguished depths of his heart. God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, so that “all the godless and the godforsaken can experience communion with him.” The godforsakenness of Jesus on the cross was simultaneously the moment of his deepest conformity and closest communion with his Father’s will. The desert of the cross both separated and united Jesus with his Father to the maximum degree imaginable.
[Charles Cummings, Spirituality and the Desert Experience (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1978).]
For reflection:
o Sometimes in a desert experience we are connected to God in palpable ways. At other times, the desert obscures our sight so much that we are connected in ways not easily noticed or felt.
o As I consider my current desert (coronavirus, physical distancing and separation), I let God’s Spirit show me how I am connected to God’s heart in this experience.
o What holds me or grounds me right now? What keeps me stable and centered?
Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent – April 2, 2020
In exploring the desert experience this week, we have drawn parallels between the desert and where we find ourselves in dealing with COVID-19 . . . physical distanced and separated from others, with altered routines, and with many of our usual coping strategies no longer available to us. We’ve talked about our tendency to seek an escape from the difficulty that is right before us. The fight or flight syndrome is real . . . right now, flight is not an option . . . while our best fight against this enemy is to stay home and do nothing that feels productive.
Psychologists talks about escapism as a desire or behavior to ignore, evade, or avoid reality. Some of our escapism takes the form of some physical action . . . we go on a shopping spree, we travel, we drink excessively . . . we actually DO something to ignore, evade, or avoid reality.
Some of our escapism is mental or emotional . . . we withdraw . . . we isolate mentally and emotionally, as well as physically . . . we distract ourselves.
Then there is Jesus, who was faithful to his own desert experience of the Crucifixion. A part of him wanted the “cup to pass from him” . . . and certainly he could have escaped the cross in other ways. But he stayed faithful to his connection to Abba . . . faithful to God’s purpose . . . faithful even in the “godforsakenness” of his own desert experience (Charles Cummings’ phrase).
Cummings speaks to this in today’s excerpt from Spirituality and the Desert Experience.
God guides his people through the desert. He will never permit me to be tried beyond my strength, or to experience desertedness and emptiness beyond my limits of endurance. And it is God who sets the limits of my endurance and who gives me the grace to accept and cooperate with my desert experience. So much am I dependent on divine grace to perform acts leading to salvation, that it is only by his grace that I can respond to him with loving acceptance and trust. It is by the power of God’s grace and his Holy Spirit present in me that I can say “Yes” to his apparent absence in my desert experience.
Jesus died on a cross outside the city, an outcast, rejected by his own people and apparently also by his own Father. Both Matthew and Mark report that Jesus spoke at least the opening words of Psalm 22 as he hung on the cross: “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? Which means, My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” [Mk. 15:34; cf. Mt. 27:46]. This cry was wrung from the anguished depths of Jesus’ heart at a moment that might be called his ultimate desert experience. Jesus knew that his Father was not distant but close at hand. Yet his Father would not intervene, would not come to the rescue in a show of power. Jesus felt abandoned and forsaken by the God whose faithful love endures forever [Ps. 136, refrain]. Only Luke’s gospel tells us of Jesus’ other word from the cross, borrowed from Psalm 36. Here is not the tormented cry of a despairing man but an announcement of loving trust: “Jesus uttered a loud cry and said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ After he said this, he expired” [Lk. 23:46]. At that ultimate moment, Jesus responded to his desert experience with a cry of loving, trusting acceptance that also came from the anguished depths of his heart. God did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, so that “all the godless and the godforsaken can experience communion with him.” The godforsakenness of Jesus on the cross was simultaneously the moment of his deepest conformity and closest communion with his Father’s will. The desert of the cross both separated and united Jesus with his Father to the maximum degree imaginable.
[Charles Cummings, Spirituality and the Desert Experience (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1978).]
For reflection:
o Sometimes in a desert experience we are connected to God in palpable ways. At other times, the desert obscures our sight so much that we are connected in ways not easily noticed or felt.
o As I consider my current desert (coronavirus, physical distancing and separation), I let God’s Spirit show me how I am connected to God’s heart in this experience.
o What holds me or grounds me right now? What keeps me stable and centered?
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