Reflection

As we move further into Advent, and consider what it means to wait for the coming of Jesus, our Mark reading challenges us to consider hard questions about location. There is a programme on television called 'location, location, location. Location is very important so why does Scripture ask us to dwell in the wilderness in the weeks leading up to Christmas? Why must God's comfort come to us in such barren, desolate settings? Why is joy hidden in the desert? This year like no other we can find so many similarities in John's desert and the pandemic we have been navigating all year.

First, the wilderness is a place that lays us bare. It's a place where we must contend with our own powerlessness and haven't we all felt powerless this year. In the wilderness, there's no safety net. No Plan B. No savings account. No job security and being cut off from those we hold dear. In the wilderness, life is raw and risky, and our illusions of self-sufficiency fall apart fast. To put ourselves outside our own power is to lay ourselves bare and completely vulnerable. In the wilderness, we have no choice but to wait and watch as if our lives depend on God showing up. Because they do. And it's into such an environment - an environment so far removed from power as to make power laughable - that the word of God comes.

Secondly, the wilderness softens us towards being sorry -- the repentance that makes God's consolation and comfort possible. When John the Baptist proclaims his baptism of repentance, he does so in the desert -- away from the temple, away from the city, away from everything his listeners consider routine and familiar. Why? Because something about the harsh, bewildering environment of the desert brings people to their knees, and that is what Covid 19 has done, it has confirmed our worst fears, fear of being hungry fear of being separated from those we love most and it shows us what is really in our hearts, and it allows our hardened exteriors to melt in sadness, and hope.

I know that for us 21st century Christians, "sin" and "repentance" are loaded words. Many of us, particularly those of us who grew up experiencing the Church's teaching on sin as a weapon, hesitate in its presence. We associate "sin" with guilt, and hell. We approach it with fear rather than confidence. Cast your mind back to what was thought of as sin in your younger day. I was taught that it was a sin to even look at a shop window on a Sunday and how well I remember going to the cinema to see Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday, I came out of the building furtively looking round in case anyone from the mission hall might see me, because going to the cinema was considered one of the greatest sins of all.

Whether we like it or not, Advent begins with an honest, wilderness-style reckoning with sin. As Isaiah describes it, the God who comforts is also the God who judges. The God who forgives is also the God who convicts. This is not because God is cruel, capricious, or withholding, but because God knows how deeply sin distorts and damages our souls. God sees what sin does to people suffering on the margins. God sees what it does to those who wield power. God sees what sin does to Creation itself.

Is it possible that acknowledging our sin might become an occasion for relief? Maybe, if we can get past our baggage and risk the desert, we will find comfort in the fact that we are hopelessly enslaved to something we cannot fix on our own. Maybe, confessing our need for deliverance will lead us to a place of profound comfort. A place where God, who alone has both the power and the will to forgive us, can make us whole.

As we prepare to meet God in Jesus this advent will you make space in your life to hear what he is saying to you Change is all around us, are you prepared to embrace it.We may not hear John's voice calling in the wilderness but are we tuned in to God's voice,

Advent is a time of waiting and preparation. We too are waiting, the preparation may be done but we must make space in our lives to listen for the voice of God, just as John did in the wilderness.