The Friday in the Second Week of Lent: Stay in the desert and come to even embrace it
The Friday in the Second Week of Lent
Deuteronomy 6:20-25; Acts 8:26-39; Psalm 86:11-17; John 4:31-38
You neglect and belittle the desert.
The desert is not remote in southern tropics
The desert is not only around the corner,
The desert is squeezed in the tube-train next to you,
The desert is in the heart of your brother.
–TS Eliot
The road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza has always been a wild place, a desert road. In Philip’s day, as well as in our own, you probably wouldn’t find yourself on that road unless something compelled you to go. The Ethiopian eunuch was compelled by his royal patron to be on that road, on his way home. Philip was compelled by an angel of God to be there, as well. Their meeting was not happenstance, and though it took place in a barren setting, the fruit borne of that meeting continues to feed us, even today.
Deserts and wild places seem to strike fear into our hearts because they represent an ideal of the untamed—animals, people, plants, the forces of nature herself. We habitually avoid the deserts and the wild places, and I wonder if Philip would have traveled to that road in Gaza for his date with destiny if an angel had not told him to go. I wonder what the Ethiopian would have done with the holy writings he was pondering without someone to help him understand, to chew over, and unpack all the wonders held within. The paradox of the setting is unsettling…the desert, the wild place as a haven of refreshment, of renewal, of the story of redemption. The whole world might have been drastically different had that meeting not taken place in the wild back country of 1st Century Palestine.
The challenge of Lent remains…stay in the desert and come to even embrace it. Find out what we did not know or understand in conversation with our brothers and sisters. Listen to the better angels of our natures. Pray. Fast. Be nourished. Proclaim the Good News. Be refreshed.
--Rachel
