Desert Living

If I'm ever asked to live in the desert, I'll hem and haw a bit, and then give a decisive "No!" I like the city, with all if its creature comforts and bright lights. I can't imagine living anywhere else. The closest I got to it was living in rural Iowa, but it wasn't overwhelmingly rural. The town I lived in was the county seat and had all the conveniences of a big city. Just not as much. It was alright, though. I didn't feel like I was lonely and isolated at all.

Eden was like that. Plenty of food, water, trees, wonderful irrigation, easy travel. It was a "garden" after all. Many of our urban areas are like gardens, but consisting of neon and concrete instead of chlorophyll and wood. But the idea is the same. It's paradise!

Sometimes we feel the need to get away from the urban jungle paradise and we go on vacation. Where do we go? Mostly to other places where we know our desires will be satisfied. Other places of paradise.

The Biblical narrative seems to imply that paradise is not where people think it is, mainly because people don't know what real paradise is. It has nothing to do with what we build to surround ourselves. It has to do with who surrounds us. Many times what people think is paradise turns out to be merely a cover and a cheap imitation of real paradise. This was the lesson the Israelites had to learn.

To them, paradise was the Promised Land. It was Eden. Jerusalem was the garden. The Temple was the Tree of Life. After 400 (or so) years of slavery in Egypt, the Israelites didn't go directly to Eden. They were desert dwellers first. 40 years of desert dwelling. They were formed out of the dust and had the breath of life blown into their nostrils, not to be physical beings, but to be a people, a nation, put together by the Spirit of God, to announce to the world that the darkness of their ways has been overcome by the light of God. And they were living, breathing proof of that!

God had molded and shaped them in the desert for this task. In the wilderness they learned that God can be trusted, meeting their every provision and need, and leading them to their mission. There, in the desert, God stripped them of all pretense.

But when they get to Eden, to Canaan, the Promised Land, the land of milk and honey (meaning, everything they could ever want) they'll forget. Tragic. Their priority became doing everything they could to hold on to the milk and honey. How? They ate from the tree they weren't supposed to eat from.

They worshipped the Baals and the Ashtoreths, made high places, built altars and temples. Now, they knew evil. Again. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil looked very much like the tree of life in their eyes. They knew evil, but at least it was comfortable. And they kept eating. And hiding from God. So, this is paradise?

A voice from the past echoes forth, "Adam, where are you?" Lost. In paradise. Can there be any such thing?

It's hard to get lost in the streets of Jerusalem, but easy to lose your way in the wilderness. But it could be the other way around. In fact, that will be the Biblical claim.

"God does not live in houses made with human hands."

"They (the Scribes and Pharisees) tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders."

Why would anyone have the urge to try to save themselves if they think they're in paradise? That is being lost!

It was time for another Exodus. The Eternal One has left the building! Will anyone follow?