For several years, I have used the same book for my Lenten devotionals: The Desert: An Anthology for Lent by John Moses. Each day is broken into a series of sayings from various individuals. Some of those sayings speak to me more than others, and some cause me to catch my breath. It begins on Ash Wednesday with a quote from Alessandro Pronzato:
“The desert is the threshold to the meeting ground of God and man… But it is only promised to those who are able to chew sand for forty years without doubting their invitation to the feast in the end.” (p. 26) From there, you enter into a great journey with all those who have ever dared to step into this barren land of heat and sand with the Israelites, the prophets, the desert monks, and more, knowing full well that the “desert is a place where the soul encounters God, but it is also a place of extreme desolation—a place of testing, where the soul is flung upon its own resources and therefore upon God. The desert, in this sense, can be anywhere.” (p. 26, Elizabeth Hamilton)
Each day, in far fewer words than this devotional, I am challenged to enter more deeply—to become what I have never been, but what God desires for and from me. And it is each year that when I come to the selections for Palm Sunday that I am broken once again, and another layer of “the old man” (Romans 6:6) crumbles. It occurs when I read the poem, The Coming, by R.S. Thomas:
And God held in his hand
A small globe. Look he said.
The son looked. Far off,
As through water, he saw
A scorched land of fierce
Colour. The light burned
There; crusted buildings
Cast their shadows: a bright
Serpent, a river
Uncoiled itself, radiant
With slime.
On a bare
Hill a bare tree saddened
The sky. Many People
Held out their thin arms
To it, as though waiting
For a vanished April
To return to its crossed
Boughs. The son watched
Them. Let me go there, he said. (p. 116)
“…And having said this he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46b)
Through Christ Jesus, we are made worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven, but in reading such words, I do not always feel such worthiness; for I recognize that my life with God has not always been about seeking ways of sanctification, but has instead been about seeking excuses to justify my wallowings in the river of slime. In that moment, I am dashed against the rocks and broken, becoming one of the many found standing on the bare hill, with my arms outstretched towards that bare tree, waiting for… waiting for… Love.
To be broken is a holy work that requires us to stand before God, naked and alone, in the desert. It requires a deep truth with ourselves, a setting aside of all pretense and justifications, and a willingness to openly reveal our sinfulness before the Living God. In doing so, we do not find a vengeful and wrathful God; but instead, we encounter the Love for which we’ve always been waiting.
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary. Pray for us, O holy Mother of God. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Step into the desert, chew the sand, stretch forth your arms…
…and encounter Love.
—The Rev. Dr. John Toles
St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Enid