Every day the children file into the school hall for collective worship. The older children take up a couple of rows per class, the younger (and littler ones) form just one row per class. ‘Make sure you give each other enough space’ says the teacher. To help, the children stretch themselves out before sitting down. But some little groups of children are always determined to sit right on top of one another. ‘Fingers on lips. I don’t want to hear anyone talking’. Collective worship? Ideally it creates a space in the day to think and reflect…possibly to pray. A space in the school timetable that is different to other spaces.
On Wednesday I was part of an interview panel for a post across in Weardale. I can’t tell you how it went, other than that ‘the process is now in the hands of the Bishop’ – but, to get there I needed to go up through Eggleston, over the tops and down into Stanhope. There is a lot of space up there. The day was clear, the sun was out, and I was back in Barney just as dusk fell and the Tree Festival began. Some people love it, don’t they? The outdoors, the open skies, not a soul to be seen for miles. The silence – space to breathe.
We all need space. I think of Elsdon who attended evening prayer at Thirsk church each week many years ago. Just a handful of folk in the chancel of the church but Elsdon, well, he always sat at the back of the nave. It’s not that he was unfriendly, it was just that he needed space. Space to look along the length of the church towards the East window, to take in the height of the ceiling. Space, perhaps for his spirit to be free? Whilst our Wednesday congregation here enjoy sitting in the choir stalls, our Sunday ‘early birds’ would probably struggle: scattered around the pews, they need space.
John the Baptist could have begun his ministry (as Jesus did) in the villages and towns around where he lived. He chose not to. He went to where there was space. He appeared in the wilderness, and he expected people to seek him out there. Wilderness places are beautiful, but they can also be dangerous. John was used to managing. Those who came to see him needed to leave their creature comforts behind and to make do. Perhaps John’s intention was to remind his hearers of Israel’s wilderness years: the time in the desert that saw the nation and its values moulded out of its dependence upon God.
For that to happen the message preached is uncompromising. The word ‘repentance’ appears towards the end of our reading. ‘Repent’ is the word we most associate with John. The language he uses is extreme. The repentance he seeks is necessary for his hearers to be able to stand in God’s presence: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight’. How do you do that? How do you do that in the wilderness? How do you prepare the way of the Lord? Well, you make a path by walking it. You step out on a new way…or you follow a tried and tested way: by your actions you create a new path. Both creating a new path or rediscovering an old one speak to us of a faith journey towards being ready for the Lord’s presence to be known in our lives.
John is not content with us tinkering about with our lives. He’s looking for a new start from us, a new beginning, a total transformation rather than a cosmetic ‘makeover’. He’s wanting us to strike out afresh. Why do I say this? For me, it’s the mention of the axe laid at the root of the trees, the mention of the stones that could be raised up as children for Abraham. This would have been a hard message for his hearers. It ties in with the first verse of our Old Testament reading – a shoot shall come from the stock of Jesse. The imagery is of a tree that has been felled, cut right back down to its roots – and only then comes the mention or possibility of new growth, of hope. Everything has gone, everything must go: the people have nothing to offer – but from their lack the God of grace offers Hope.
Some of you, like me, will have grown up with the Ladybird story books, the illustrated fairy tales where the woodcutter takes his axe out into the woods to fell a tree. He is broad shouldered but (with just his axe) his task is daunting. Head up the Stang however and you’ll see the Forestry Commission’s wood cutting on an industrial scale. Machines that grab the base of a tree, saw it from its base, turn it 90% to be fed through a mechanism that strips it of its branches and then cuts off equal lengths to be transported away from the site. A tree a minute. Devastation.
This is wilderness. Here everything is pared back. All support has gone. In spiritual terms the wilderness is just you and God. No props. No pretence. No church. No building. No bible, sacrament or ritual, no community, no music, no hymns. Nothing. In the wilderness space that is Advent we are invited to take stock of who we are in the presence of God when all these things are stripped away from us? Of itself that thought should send us to our knees to confess our unworthiness to be in His presence. To meet with the real you. Terrifyingly John’s message says that tradition is not enough. In Judaism, of course, you don’t have to do a lot of believing to belong. Belonging is inherited whether you want it or not, it is passed down the generations, it is in the blood. ‘Not enough’ says John. ‘Abraham may well have been your ancestor but the stones of the wilderness are infinitely better than your family tree.
We must go back to basics. God. You. Creator and creature. Source of all being meeting the dust of the earth. The wilderness journeys taken by Israel taught the people that all life came from God’s hand. This is the lesson we must all learn and relearn. We need His promised spirit to be breathed into us to give us Life but our lives are so full that there is no room for the Spirit of God to reach us.
So what to do? We have a gift in the form of this Advent season. A gift of time to get real with God: to recognise afresh our total need of Him. But to do this we need to find some space, some room to be alone with God. And that space is rapidly filled as we try to get ‘Christmas’ over and done with in order to make room for … Christmas. We can’t avoid the rush entirely. We can’t pretend that for many it is in this season that we must speak of the next. Our lives are full, our diaries are full, our minds are full, our days are full. Every waking moment seems to have a task to fill it. But we are called away from busy-ness out to the wilderness place – that’s where we can meet with Him.
Is there anything on your to-do list to which you can say ‘No’? Is there a space in your day when you can sit quietly, breath deeply and entrust yourself to the One who gives you Life? You don’t particularly need words, just a heart that wishes to turn towards God trusting in His goodness and loving kindness. And if prayer is difficult, to ‘want’ to pray is enough: take that desire to want to pray into the silence with you. In the rush of your preparations for Christmas might you look for moments where you can pause, take a step back from what you are doing and lift your head up from the immediate and the pressing to the promise of God’s kingdom around you? It is not that God isn’t present in the crowds, in the noise and in the busy-ness rather, that struggle to be present. Too many things fill our minds and press in upon our souls. We need space.
So, when these trees are taken down and the church empties after the festival, remember that this space can be yours. If there is no place else where you can truly prepare for Christmas, then come here. Sit. Breath. Pray, renew your faith and trust and be made new by God’s Spirit.