The Prophet in the Wilderness
Light, Shalom, and the Prophetic Way from Babylon to the Jordan
There Was a Man Sent from God
Behold the Light, the Glory of the One in whom we live, move, and have our being. It shines from the beginning and illuminates the minds of all. It is so bright that it blinds the eye to all but itself, but it flows through all things so it hides nothing from the vision.
With eyes closed, the Light bleeds through, colored by the thin veil that overshadows it. Fear covers the eyes so that nothing can be seen but darkness. Greed tints the Light to trick the mind into believing everything belongs to it. Lust for power sets the world on fire in order to claim light for itself. Each of these acts as a will-o’-the-wisp, drawing people away from the way, the truth, and the life of the world illuminated by the Glory. They are not brighter than the Light. They are distractions luring people from the path into the wilderness, so these powers can devour them and claim them as their own.
For this reason, the prophets are sent out into the world and the wilderness. Everyone is a mystic, an artist, and a prophet. The mystic beholds the awe and holds the darkness, making space for the Light to breathe. The artist shapes the heart, mind, and spirit so it can see the Light even when it is obscured. Prophets are light bearers who carry the light into the dark places to illuminate the injustice and harm present, and to show the way back to the path. They are lighthouses, warning of rocks below the dark waters and showing the path to the safe harbor.
There are no great prophets and lesser prophets; all are prophets equal in all dignity. The Word speaks the word. Presence shows up in the moment. Glory radiates in every heart. Each prophet is called to the times they live in. Some times are drier (siccitas) than others. Some times are darker than others. In times like these, prophets must bring forth more water for the parched land and radiate more light to push back the darkness. This greening water and brilliant light are not from the prophet, but from the One they live in and who lives within them.
When the Word, the Light, and the Glory entered into the world, the way needed to be prepared to receive them.
“There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. The same came as a witness, that he might testify about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but was sent that he might testify about the light. The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world (John 1:6-9).”
John, like the prophets before and after him, bore witness to the Light, shining it into the dark places so that greening might return to the dry places. He did not speak of himself, but of the power that animated him and gave him life. Like all prophets, he allowed the light to shine through him so that it might do its work in the world. The prophet is the lens that focuses the light so the people can see.
Blessed be John, the Baptizer, shoot of the branch that made way for the vine to grow. May the blessings to the way he proclaimed open the way so that the Life of the World might breathe free and green the dry land so that life may flourish.
The Benedictus: The Commission Before the Going Out
Tradition holds that John was born at the beginning of the dry season, around the close of the grain harvest. In ancient Judea, they experienced the seasons differently from what we do today. First was the season of the early rains. This began after the long dry period. It softened the ground for plowing and sowing. The winter was a rainy period when grain grew. The latter rains helped the grain mature. Then, the dry period came, which was the time of harvest.
At the beginning of the dry, harvest season, John was born. Rome’s occupation of Judea and the Galilee parched the land. The Word would soon be born into this world. Zechariah prayed over the baby and said:
“And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dawn from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:76-79).”
Zechariah calls his son the prophet of the Most High, Elyon. We are all prophets of Elyon. When we think about God, we imagine an exalted Being above all other powers, but that is not what we mean. Elyon is the Most Exalted who is held in the highest esteem. The One who lives in all things and in whom all things live. We exalt Elyon to remind ourselves there is something greater that includes and inhabits us all. It is not that God is above us, but lives through us as we mutually live with each other and with God. God’s exaltation does not mean withdrawal from suffering. Elyon is not above or outside us. Elyon, the Highest, the Most Exalted, is with us in our suffering and in our joy. The sovereignty of Elyon is revealed through mercy, illumination, forgiveness, and peace. The prophet is the hand of mercy, the voice of illumination, the councilor of forgiveness, and the celebrant of joy. Elyon flows through this all.
The prophet goes before the face of the Lord. The face of Elyon shines on and within us all. To go before the face of Elyon is to walk in this mutual presence. We live in God as God lives in us, so we may bring the life and greening of the Holy One to all. Rooted in this mutuality, the prophet sees in the suffering and oppression of others the suffering and oppression of themselves and God. They behold the face of Elyon in everyone and everything. This enlivens their hearts and quickens their strength to stand up to and interfere with the injustices of the world.
When we prepare the ways of Elyon, we clear the paths so they are easy to walk and the channels so life can flow without obstruction. So many things can trip up the path and clog the flow. Decisions we’ve made, wounds inflicted upon us, fear, and hopelessness, each or all of these can cause us to stumble or constrict in life. The work of a prophet is to clear these out in themselves, but also to clear them out in others and in the places they live. No one is perfect, so we do this work together. The mutuality discovered in God and Life is the mutuality of the work we do. We clear together. We heal together. We rebuild together.
As the prophet gives knowledge of salvation to their people by the remission of their sins, they do not point to the errors, the stumbling, the blockage and condemn it. They give people a way to recognize salvation when it arrives. Salvation is the greening of the dry heart and the dry land, the restoration of life to the fullness it should have always had. This is not a knowing we can achieve through study alone, but one we must recognize, experience, and participate in so God’s saving work is actually done in this world and it is restored. Salvation is not a moment or the result of a prayer. Salvation is the healing and deliverance of the heart, mind, and spirit into the fullness of life. The remission of sins is not about forgiveness, it is about releasing our mistakes and returning to the path of light.
When the inward compassion of our God, which will rise from above and illuminate those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, visits us, the people and the land are healed. When we restore the world, we release the light trapped within it so the Glory of God in the Cosmos can be lived by all. This light shows the way and guides our feet into the way of peace. We become lost. We repeat inherited violence. We choose familiar roads of retaliation, fear, superiority, resentment, or control. We may genuinely want peace while continuing to walk patterns that make peace impossible. To live in the rest and wholeness of peace (shalom), we have to grow into the mutual indwelling of God and life so the Glory of God can shine upon us.
The light of God will meet us where fear and death have left us unable to move. The One who animates the cosmos moves each and every one of us into action. The Light will reveal a road shaped by justice, mercy, reconciliation, and shared flourishing, and this mutual indwelling will patiently teach our bodies, our habits, and our communities how to walk it together. This is the way and work of the prophets we are all called to perform.
Be Alive
Do not be afraid, the work is not as daunting as it might sound. A vital soul revitalizes all those around it. Everywhere the green grows, it shelters life under its limbs. Cooperation and mutuality are the nature of life far more than competition will ever be. Fear, greed, and lust for power focus on competition so they might divide and conquer the people and claw from the earth all their heart desires.
Be alive. Don’t just live, be alive. Life is the light that enlivens the world. That is the heart of the prophetic calling. A prophet lives so we all can live. Since we are all called to be prophets, it is our work to be alive, fully alive in our awe, sorrow, suffering, creativity, interference with injustice, and celebration. Life feels, heals, and restores. More than all of these, it supports its own life and all those living around them.
John grew up in a prophetic home, with the spirit of Elijah in and upon him. The call to the desert, to the wilderness drove him from the priestly life of his father to make the way of the Most High clear.
Why did John leave the security of the priesthood and his father’s house for the wilderness? The more he lived God, the easier it was for him to see the suffering of the occupation of Rome, the pain in people’s hearts, and the shadow that covered the land. He left for the wilderness because the people were forced from the way of life by the oppression of the empire strangling their land. It was the place where empire could not follow.
Nature is wild, and in the wildness, in that wilderness, the controlling powers of empire had no hold. He met people where they were and offered them a path back toward life.
In the green lands around the river Jordan, he preached, and he baptized. He washed people in the living waters so they could release their pain, their mistakes, their old lives into the water so it could carry it away. He gave them the experience of liberation so new life could grow in them.
He took their fractured parts into the flow of the river, and pulled the whole person back out. John didn’t transform them by the grace of his words or his actions, he offered them a taste of the graces of nature, forgiveness, and illumination. Each person he baptized now had to tend this refreshed soil of their heart and grow back into the fullness of life.
To transform life we must release the ways that did not work and embrace the way that greens and gives life to those who walk it. If the prophet does not go to the people and return them to the graces of nature, forgiveness, and illumination, then no one is healed.
Do not bristle at the blessing, “Your sins are forgiven.” Is it easier to say, “Your heart is healed,” “You are renewed,” or “New life is conceived within you.” These are all blessings that say the same thing, but must root in the heart and grow into the tree of life within for the fruit of life to grow.
Go to the wilderness, to nature, and release what shackles you to the dry, narrow land so you can do the work necessary to clear the way for the flow of life.
Azut D’kedushah: Holy Boldness in the Desert
When we are called into the desert of Siccitas, we only have what we carry with and within us. If we are already dried out, we have to find the living waters quickly. But if we are called into the desert because we want to help those wandering through it, we must bring enough resources for ourselves and them. The prophetic call may come from either one or both of these sources.
What we need to survive this dry desert is holy boldness, sacred audacity (azut d’kedushah, עַזּוּת דִּקְדֻשָּׁה). This holy boldness is the sacred audacity through which we should enter the presence of God. We approach the divine with our head up and our backs straight. We may argue with the Divine like Abraham, or laugh like Sarah. We might even wrestle the Holy like Jacob did.
Remember, everything is in God, and God is in everything, so this holy boldness, sacred audacity (azut d’kedushah) is also how we approach life and living. It is this boldness that gets us through the desert and the dryness of life. It takes this sacred audacity to stand up to the powers of Babylon and Mitzrayim.
This boldness is not aggression, domination, nor certainty that we are right. It is the refusal to let obstacles decide whether we will pray, learn, repent, or begin again. Since life is prayer, this means we do not allow obstacles to stand in our way.
This boldness admits what we do not understand. It asks the seemingly foolish questions. It has the humility to request guidance. With it, we approach a teacher or spiritual friend honestly, refusing to pretend knowledge we do not possess. Unholy boldness or audacity does not do these things. What makes something holy is that it is set apart. If we do not take azut d’kedushah as holy, we will empty it as our dryness pulls the life from it.
Azut d’kedushah arises from Simcha (joy). If you need this boldness, start with gratitude, find this joy, this simcha, and live boldly from it.
Azut d’kedushah, holy boldness, allows us to hold onto truth. It is satyagraha in action. Holy boldness is soul force, truth force, encouraging our step through life as we live God in every moment. How do we hold onto truth? Joy. Simcha is the power of life arising in the community to drive the greening ever on. Be joyfully bold, joyfully audacious, pouring soul force into the world with joy.
Remember the bands of the prophets would sing and dance through the wilderness as they went about their way.
Davka: Precisely Here, Precisely Now
At the river Jordan, John baptized with water to heal the souls and wash the unclean spirits from people so they can find the steadfast breath/spirit again. He taught holy boldness and gave people the tools they needed to face the vagaries of life. Davka (דַּוְקָא)... Lav davka... Afilu... or to say that another way: precisely this case, not only this case, even in this case.
He baptized with water, precisely the water of the river Jordan, but this cleansing is not exclusive to his hands and that river, and even if there is no water and a person is alone, this cleansing is available to them.
Davka means so much more than this. The holy boldness we are called to live with is not just for the good times. Davka requires us to ask what faithfulness requires in this specific circumstance. The holy is encountered through distinctions and relationships, not merely through undifferentiated unity. It helps us see where and how to perform purposeful resistance.
It also reveals through reversal. The ignored person may davka become the teacher. The wilderness may davka become the meeting place. A limit may davka disclose a vocation. Grief may davka reveal how deeply the world has been loved. This is why we stand with the anawim, the vulnerable. When we see the stones the builders of empire reject, we learn more about the glories of life they are pressing out of it.
This is the vision of holy boldness, to see precisely what it is in this moment that can teach us. This is the opposite of saying, everything happens for a reason. It is not that everything happens for a reason, but that in this precise moment we have a call to holy boldness. Precisely: What am I resisting, whom does my resistance serve, and what kind of world does it create?
When we say that we focus on the needs of the anawim, we are resisting the call of empire to cast someone out for an arbitrary reason. This resistance serves the marginalized and the community itself by healing the artificial division being sown into it. This creates a world of equitable justice and unity that resists the division that weakens us all.
This lens helps us to see clearly when times are good and when they are hard. It focuses us on the work before us so we are not distracted by the situation we find ourselves in.
This also helps keep us from rejecting life for spiritual purposes. On path one, when we experience awe, we ask precisely what is eliciting this awe so we can dig deeper into the wonder before us. In path two, we ask precisely what pain, suffering, or grief we are sitting with and what are its causes. As we step onto path three, we ask precisely what we are creating and why so we can make it as good as we can. In path four, we ask precisely what the injustice is, how to interfere with it, and how we can do this with joy and celebration.
The cosmic prevents the particular from becoming tribal or enclosed. The particular prevents the cosmic from becoming abstract or evasive. On these two wings we fly. As a mystic, we do not lose ourselves in the depths of our meditation and contemplation. The artist does not lose themselves or contact with the world as they continue their work. For the prophet, this way of thinking keeps us from smoothing over particular issues to focus on the bigger problems before us, but it also keeps us from only seeing the particular issues at the cost of ignoring the systems that make those problems.
Boldness without precision is reckless. Actions without boldness lack strength. The mystic, the artist, and the prophet must find the balance between these or they become self-serving and the needs of life are ignored.
At the river Jordan, John met the people in the circumstances of their lives as they were, and offered them a way they could find life there and to rescue it from the pain pressed into them. The water was symbol, but also a place of awe, release, creation, and transformation. Precisely in these waters, the old life was washed away and the new life rose in its place.
He Must Increase, I Must Decrease
Listen to the voice of John as he teaches us the deepest heart of the prophetic call, “He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30).”
As the prophet grows into the life of the Wild Christ to interfere with the injustices of the world, they have to learn how to keep from centering themselves in the work and mission. It is not the prophet, but the Life and Light of God that speaks to the heart, and this Cosmic Christ can speak to the heart even in the absence of the prophet. This does not give us a license to do nothing in the face of injustice. It is a reminder that we must center the Living Word. The Living Word does not depend on the prophet, but the prophet depends on the Living Word.
The Living Word is the Word spoken, enacted, and lived in the world. It is the creative power flowing through all things. No prophet is a gateway or a mediator of this power. It is everywhere in everything, if only we listen to it.
In the life of the prophet, the prophet must decrease so the Living Word may increase. Their focus must always be on the Light, Life, and Wisdom of God as it flows into the world, and not themselves. This is holy boldness at its fullest.
We all live God in every moment of every day. When the prophetic call comes to us, we live the Living Word in the face of the injustice, interfering with it so people may be liberated. Liberation, return, and restoration are the goals of the prophets. It is never self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, and self-centered. Those are the poisons of Babylon entering the community like sheep, but inside they are ravenous wolves.
A true prophet decreases so the Living Word may grow in the life of the community. John did not require people to return to him for remission of their sins. He taught them the way of return and sent them on their way. When the Wild Christ came to him to be baptized, he baptized him, and sent many of his disciples to follow him. This is the way of the prophet. The prophet serves God, and God is life liberated from the chains of oppression.
You Are a Prophet
We are born in this world to carry the Light of Life. Babylon tries to dim it. Mitzrayim seeks to dry it out. Like John, we are called to work in this world in the spirit of Elijah, to prepare the way for Life to flow without obstruction or diversion.
Shalom to the hearts of the prophets. Peace in wholeness to all who live in this world. Do not believe that peace is not real in times of conflict or that wholeness is absent in division. Celebrate with joy the peace and wholeness you have and seek to increase it as more are liberated from the chains that weigh them down.
Not everyone will follow our way, with the same words and deeds, but all who seek to live in liberation, peace, and wholeness join us in the way.
The Way is narrow, not because God constricts it, but because Babylon and Mitzrayim block the path so they can divide the living and control their lives. For the same reason, Truth and Life are also hard to find so people will give in to the greed, fear, and lust for power that seek to devour the world.
Awake, all you prophets. Awake to the call to interfere with injustice and liberate yourself and your fellows from the shackles that seek only to control and dominate. The Word is a discourse and lives in the discussion. Interfere with injustice and set life free.
Go forth with holy boldness and precision, so you will overcome the obstacles and diversions set in the path before you. Heal divisions, but do not lose yourself to the wholeness and fullness of life. Your distinct voice is needed, or the chorus of life is diminished. Seek not your own way, but the way of life so all may be free to live in the joy available to all.
You are a prophet. The call of the Holy Spirit is upon you. May your breath ever be steadfast and not divided. May your heart be so full it overflows into the world so all may grow green with life more abundantly.
Be an eye that sees, arms that hold and heal, hands that build up, and a life that pours justice and joy into the world. This is the way of the prophets. Join the dance. Sing the songs of life, and secure justice for all.
The oak knows. The well knows. The land under your feet has always been the first teacher. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer gives that knowing a companion for the journey.
