The deserts are so different than I had imagined. Somehow, I had them flat and sandy where you could see for miles in every direction. Obviously, it's nothing like that. Often you can't see far at all. It must have been dramatic for the Hebrews too. They had lived in Goshen in the Nile delta where it's flat 30 or 40 miles in every direction. They could always see into the distance where they were going or who was coming. God brought them out into a desert that was mountainous and rocky and had narrow canyons they had to pass and often they must not have known where they were going. 

My deserts have been like that too. I would guess yours have as well - those difficult times in life, those times of pain and struggle. Often it seems as if I don't know where I'm going. I'm not sure how I'm going to get there or whether I'm going to get there. And in that, God teaches. 

He taught the Hebrews and he teaches us. Egypt taught a sense of self-sufficiency. The Nile River flooded every year. The Bible says, "God said, 'I brought you from a land where you watered your crops with your foot.'" That's probably a reference to the water wheel that was turned with a foot and lifted the water up out of the flooded Nile to the farms and watered the crops. It was easy to think you had done it yourself, you were responsible for your own life. And so God brought them to a place where they couldn't provide, where they couldn't tell where they were going, because it would move them from self-sufficiency, trusting in their own ability and their own efforts to a sense of total dependence and an awareness that God provides everything that's necessary. 

I think that's the lesson God wants to teach us as we retrace their ancient footsteps. He wants us to be totally dependent on him, and sometimes in the painful circumstances of life, life's struggles, that's exactly the lesson he teaches. Come. Let me show you.

We're in the wilderness of Sinai, fairly close to the traditional Mount Sinai - or Katrîne - the one that we chose as our object lesson of those incredible events, involving the giving of the Torah. 

Eventually, Israel had to leave Sinai and head out into the desert around, whether that was here or somewhere else. We're not trying to establish. We're trying to understand. Now if you look in the Bible, you'll discover that all the great founders within Judaism, their founding fathers and mothers, if you will, are desert people. The first two - Abraham and Sarah. Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah all lived in the desert right south of the Promised Land, just where the fertile territory began. So the couple that gave birth to the people of God were desert people. 

Or Moses. Yes, an Egyptian for 40 years, but 40 years in the desert and then 40 more with the children of Israel. Israel themselves, born and brought to maturity here, and their children entered the Promised Land. 

David, the one who established, shall we say, the political system that would be Israel for a period of time, the forerunner of the Messiah. He also grew up as a shepherd on the edge of the desert and spends months before he became king running from Saul in the desert.

So God's people are desert people. They understood desert. Therefore, you would expect that many of their metaphors and pictures or life are going to be desert pictures. We've really been touched, I think, by the fact that Eastern people always want a picture of whatever it is. God as a rock, God as eagle's wings. They like those concrete images. So I don't think it should surprise us that a high percentage of the biblical images that teach us about who we are, who God is, what life is come out of the desert. 

One way to look at it is in life, there are desert moments. Sometimes you could say the Bible says life is a desert. I think that's biblical. Sometimes, I think, the Bible treats desert as those moments. So think back, if you would, painful though it may be, to a desert moment you've had recently or you're in now. You know it, God knows it, maybe a few people close to you know it. God brings us to desert moments where the heat wants to consume us, where the lack of water drives us to the edge of how much more can I take? Those desert moments become, then, in the Bible, moments to meet God, moments for God to demonstrate his constant presence, his incredible protecting love and care so that slowly but surely, he nurtures us into a people that knows we can't do it ourselves, that knows we need God's daily sustenance. And that equips us to be that kingdom of priests who will present God to the world.

Now to be honest, sometimes I wish I could tell you differently. I wish I could tell that if you decide to join the God movement, your deserts will diminish, and eventually, they'll be gone. Well there's truth in that, because eventually, all of our deserts are ended. And I remember one of Jesus' disciples saying it this way (Revelation 7), "Never again will they hunger. Never again will they thirst. Never again will the sun bead upon them, nor the scorching heat. But the lamb from the center of the throne will lead them to springs of Living Water and God will wipe away every tear."

Now he does that in small ways. But I think that's the one we pray and look forward to when that Kingdom comes in all its fullness. Until then, there will be desert moments in which God wants to meet us intimately. 

How about if we said it this way? Our mission is to be the community of God's people so that as he lives in and through us, shaped and molded, the world will know that he is God. But the desert says, "Before you can live that the world may know there is a God, you need to know." And I don't mean know here [pointing to head]. That's essential. I mean to know experientially. 

So as we walk this desert, let's look for those unbelievably powerful pictures in which God says, "When you reach the desert moment in your life, here's where to look for me. Here's what I want from this desert." Come. Let's walk together in some of the deserts they walked and look and wait for God to teach us. Come.

As we've been walking, we've tried to experience as well as to understand why, in the Hebrew, life is a walk. God wants us to think of a journey and we're walking. And he's got a right path, and there are many wrong paths. It's so important when you walk in life, that you're walking on the path he chooses. Well when I get to places like this where we came from here, you can't see more than 100 yards. And where we're going, you just see a mountain. In other words, in life's walk, often you can't see ahead of you. And I think that's a significant part of learning desert is that we can't see down the path. As much as we'd like to, as much as we'd like to plan ahead, God says, "If you get on my path, you're not going to be able see what's around the next bend. Plan, fine. Prepare, of course. But you don't know. What I'll promise you is if you're on my path and you're following the lead of me as your shepherd - that is my words - I promise you, see it or not, around that next bend, I'll be there too." 

And that highlights, for me, the danger of being on the wrong path. Because that promise is not the same if you choose a different path or a different shepherd. So it's compelling to think walking here, what's around there. I don't know. But this is the way the voice calls, so this is the way I walk. Come. Let's walk by faith, not by sight. And actually, in the Greek, Paul uses the word for walk. We say live by faith, not by sight. Paul says we walk by faith, not by sight. Let's walk by faith. Come.

We've hiked a bit down what's called Wadi Nasb. Some would argue that Israel passed this way. Well again, we're not trying to establish square inch, but at least it's possible. But certainly, they were in canyons like this as they made their way from Sinai on toward the Promised Land. Imagine 125 degrees and we're out walking in it. That's hard to imagine, but I've been here in the summer. It is intense.

Fortunately, in this land, there are occasional opportunities for shade, and this is one of them. Growing out of the side of this wadi here, rooted deeply in the rock is a small-- we call it a shrub or a bush, I guess. It's called in Hebrew, rotem. In English, we say broom tree. So rotem or broom tree. It's very beautiful. It produces a white flower. Camels eat it. Goats eat it. So it has a functional purpose in their life. But it becomes one of very few examples of shade. 

Now notice the shade it produces. It's not this complete darkening but stops enough of the sun that if you position yourself under it and sit, it actually is quite a bit cooler here than it would be standing out in the sun. And that's God's provision here in the desert. 

It enters a couple of Bible stories. One is the story of Hagar and Ishmael. Abraham has sent them away. They've gone out into the desert, Hagar and her young boy, Ishmael, until their water is gone. Then the Bible says Hagar couldn't stand what was happening because she knew the end was near. So she laid Ishmael under one of these, and she walked a distance, and she sat down under one of them. Picture her here, her head in her hands, weeping, wailing as she knows the time has come. 

Of course, God shows up and redeems her and restores here and makes a great nation from her and Ishmael as well. Now the bible doesn't actually call that a broom tree (a rotem), but afterward the name of the place is called Ritmah (Genesis 21), which comes from the word rotem. So it's fairly safe to assume that that's what it was. And that creates a desert lesson. 

Let's set it up like this. Imagine life's moments when the heat is overpowering. Now I don't want to be too personal here, but remember that situation that you found yourself in or you're in right now when something is going on that's absolutely overwhelming and the heat is so hot it drives on you, it pounds on you. "Your strength is sapped like the heat of the summer," the Psalmist writes. 

Remember it. Maybe it was a disease that you or someone you love has. Maybe it was a child that decided to walk away from God's way. Maybe it was something happening in your business. Just think of it for a moment. But think of it here in the metaphor of, "It's so hot, I don't think I can make it. I don't know if I can go another step. God, what am I going to do? It's going to kill me."

Then the Bible says, "The Lord is the shade at my right hand." Let me show you something. If this is their shade tree, notice what kind of shade God promises. 

I wish I could tell you God said, "Listen, when you're in the heat of summer and it's overwhelming you and you're hurting so deeply because of what's happening in your life right now, I'll come like a gigantic oak tree. I'll drop the temperature to about 65 with no humidity, gentle breeze." Pray for that, because our God has the power to do this. But often what God says is, "Look. That's me. Just enough shade to sit for a few moments and then to go one more day, one more bend on life's walk, one more step." 

When you say, "The Lord is my shade," the image in the Eastern mind is not everything is now wonderful. But rather, "In my pain, God has joined me with just enough of himself to keep me going." It would be awesome to hear your stories. And maybe the desert you're in, you haven't found shade yet right now. And maybe that desert that's coming around the next bend, God is saying, "There will be one broom tree, one broom tree each day, each minute."

But do you see what God wants? God wants us to learn to live in his arms one moment at a time. You don't have it ahead of time, you don't carry it with you. When you get there, "The Word from my mouth will create just a little bit of shade."

So God has said, "I'm your shade. In fact, I'm the shade at your right hand." 

Do something for me. Take your right hand and stretch it out as far as you can. Reach, reach. Now say after me, "The Lord is the shade at my right hand." Farther. That's as far as God's shade ever is. As far as your right hand can get away from you, the shade is always that close. Isn't that a magnificent promise?

But then this God who promises to be shade no matter how hot the desert, this God in his unbelievable way says, "Though it's all me, I want a partner." 

Listen to Psalm 80. "You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade." 

Ah! God's Hebrew people were called to be shade. The prophet refers to Israel as the shade for the nations. So God says, "Yeah. Life is hard. The heat is overwhelming. But I will be your shade. But in this case, the shade is going to be in the form of my people. They will be my presence.

There's an interesting story in the book of Acts that I never caught before but I think refers to the idea that the community of God's people - now in Acts - including we Gentiles who have come in because of Jesus. And it says as Peter would walk, people would come so that just his shadow would touch them. And I think the image is Israel will be shade, and that's carried out now that Israel, we get added to Israel and so all they needed was the shade of those disciples and to experience the healing, comforting power of God.

And then Isaiah makes it individual. "See, a king will reign in righteousness and rulers will rule with justice." (Isaiah 32) - this coming Kingdom when God reclaims his world. "Kingdom of Heaven," Jesus would call it. 

What happens? "Each one will be a shelter from the wind, a refuge from the storm, a stream of water in the desert." And the shadow of shade comes from the same word in Hebrew of a mighty rock in a thirsty land. You, called by God, not only promised his shade through his community. You are called to be his shade to hurting people. And chaos is defeated a little. Just for a moment, shalom comes. Not much. Look. Just a little. And you go one more bend, one more broom tree, one more moment. So learn not only to look as you walk through those painful experiences in life, for the next rotem, the next broom tree, whatever form it takes. Look for people who are being scorched by the heat of life's hard times. And be just for a moment, just a little, and they too will taste the sweetness of God's shalom. 

If we've learned our lesson, we're not worried. We do not fear the heat when it comes. Because we've got air conditioning? No. Because the heat doesn't bother us? No. Because there will be a broom tree at the moment it becomes overwhelming. And his word will speak that tree into existence, because we do not live by shade alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

"Be strong and courageous. I will go with you, and sometimes, I'm going to look like a broom tree." Let's go see.

I was thinking about people in Jesus' day who were in the intense heat of their deserts - a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. That's difficult enough in its own right, but that made her untouchable to even her closest family. A leper who was always outside, parents with a child who had a demon, a woman who was to be stoned and brought to Jesus. In each case, like a broom tree in the desert, Jesus was shade - pretty dramatically, healing, casting out of the demon, finding a way to forgive the woman and release her. But that's what Jesus wants to do and to be in our deserts as well. He wants to be our shade. 

Sometimes his shade is dramatic. It can undo the alienation we have with God or with others by his forgiveness and his blood. Sometimes it's just the minimal shade of giving us enough strength, enough encouragement to take another step and to go another day. 

And so as you walk through your desert, look for him. Even though you're not sure where you're going or how you're going to get there, look for those broom trees that represent the presence, the sustaining power of Jesus. Maybe in the community around you, maybe in people, and maybe directly. And in that way, we move from self-sufficiency to dependence and trust just like the Hebrews, brought out of Egypt, into the desert to learn to trust. So it will be with us. 

Última modificación: jueves, 27 de agosto de 2020, 13:05