See, I am sending my messenger
before your face,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one
crying in the wilderness . . .
MARK 1:2-3
Perhaps it was only in the wilderness of the Jordan River that John the Baptist's message could be heard and understood. People had to leave behind the comforts of home, the noise of daily living and their carefully oiled mechanisms for control. They needed to walk out into a place that had a reputation for being dangerous and unnerving for its utter unfamiliarity and emptying silence. They had to accept such exposure before they could fully turn toward a life they had never known or expected.
Perhaps it is only in the wilderness that we hear and understand some new thing, a new birth that is waiting but cannot yet be perceived. The wilderness of not knowing, not seeing, not controlling is present, sometimes at the margins of our living and sometimes it seems to be everywhere we look. Always it invites us to willingly traverse its reaches and prepare to turn, and turn yet again.
