Scripture Passage

Exodus 16: 2-15

Sermon Text

We do not like wilderness. We are fearful of any barren land. And why? Because wilderness is a place of lifelessness, there’s no water, no plants and thus our livelihood is seriously threatened. No one likes to go into the wilderness. So it is a natural response that we try our best to avoid any wilderness. We will go around the wilderness, even go extra miles, to avoid the wilderness. Today’s text shows us the story of wilderness. The ancient Israel people, when they came out of Egypt and came to the wilderness, call it the wilderness of sin here, a sin means moon in ancient language. They started to complain against their leaders, Moses and Aaron.

Let’s take a look at the map. The green color, that’s their journey. It’s not that long. When they left Egypt and started to complain, it was evidence of their dislike of the wilderness they happened to be in. In today’s verse today’s passage, Verse three says the Israelites said to them, if only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flash pots and ate our fill of bread for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. As we can see from this, when we face life difficulties, something we cannot handle, something we do not know, or something we do not want to face; we always want to go back to the past in order to escape the harsh present reality.

Radical truth is hidden in wilderness.
As the Israelites said, they ate good food in Egypt, but that wasn’t true. Most of the time, those memories are not correct, but just our wishful thinking. We over package the past experiences because we do not like the present situation. The more we are afraid of the current situation, the more we will cling to the past to give us instant gratitude or a peace of mind, that our life will not progress but stall or even regress. This is how we would react, when we go into the wilderness. We will spend more time on the thoughts like: I used to be like this, those glorious old days – things like that. But we need to realize that such actions and thinking will not help us at all. It will not brighten up our present time nor the future. So what should we do with the wilderness, which is part of our life. Sometimes we cannot avoid, something that just come it comes at you. And then we are plunged into that wilderness. What we need to understand about the wilderness is this: We should not always try to avoid or tour around the wilderness. Wilderness should not be something we always avoid or dislike. Why is that? It is because radical truth is hidden in the wilderness. There’s a secret in the wilderness. Since wilderness is a place of lifelessness and we humans cannot produce anything there, paradoxically, we can trust God and meet God in that wilderness. Helplessness, and hopelessness are the characteristics of the wilderness, but they can lead us to the God who created this universe out of nothing. So if there’s a tiny, tiny possibility by human eyes, there cannot be wilderness, but in the wilderness where we do not have any hope, we can begin to see God and God’s help.

God in the wilderness
Thomas Merton, one of the spiritual giants, talks about the wilderness in his book: “Thoughts in solitude”: The desert is therefore the logical welling place for the, man seeks to be nothing but himself. That is to say a creature solitary and poor and dependent upon no one but God. With no great project standing between himself and his creator. Wilderness can be a scary place to humanize, but it can be the place in time for us to meet God in a real way and authentic way. Please pause for a moment and reflect upon what I just said. Through our knowledge and experience, we will conclude that wilderness has no life in it and therefore, we cannot do anything about it. But because of such very same conditions, we will be forced not to rely on ourselves, but to look for our creator, God.

John the Baptist used to say this: I have to decrease and Jesus has to increase. But in wilderness we need to empty ourselves totally. So the God can be God in the wilderness. My friends, faith, by definition, is a radical thing. Faith urges us to choose either this or that. Whether choosing my ways or God’s ways, whether choosing me or God. If you try to have it both ways, we will not be able to accomplish anything. The way God works, God itself is mystery. Unknown and unfamiliar is our God. We heard from Reverend Ingee Kim at NBC last weekend. The Saint Agustine said something similar about God. He said:if you understood him, it will not be God. If God works as I want. And if God is in my control – Is that God real? That is not God but an idol. If we want to seek God and meet God, we need to look for the unknown God and unfamiliar God. Where can we meet this kind of unknown and mysterious God? Wilderness.

In the wilderness, God provides

In today’s texts the Israelites were wondering about this flaky substance. They had never seen it before. Verse 15 says: when the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, what is it for? They did not know what it was. Moses said to them. It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. The Isrealites encountered God’s mystery in the wilderness. They didn’t not know what this white and flaky stuff covered the ground, but because of this, they survived in the wilderness. Have you heard the word manna? Manna is a Hebrew word meaning “what is it?”. It signifies something beyond our human experience and knowledge. It signifies and indicates something greater than ourselves, something mysterious in God’s work. This manna was there for the Israelites for 40 years, when there were in the wilderness. It never stopped. God to care of them by supplying Manna and quails, while they were in the wilderness. My friends, wilderness will strip away what we know. It will stop us from doing things by our own effort. Wilderness will dis-construct us so that we can be constructed by God again. Therefore, wilderness is nothing but a blessed time and place where we will encounter God be molded by God. When we live this life, we will go through the wilderness periods here and there because of unexpected life challenges. We feel like we are plunging into the wilderness because of this hardship that life throws at us. We are pushed to be in the hopeless and helpless wilderness.

I cannot help but to share this story with you. It was April 21st this year where we had Evangel hall ministry. It was ESMs turn so some of our ESM members came out and help such as Katie Ang. That’s the very day Katie found out from the hospital that her cancer had spread throughout her whole body. But you know what happened that day, Katie decided to come out and still serve at Evangel hall that day. She said, whether I die today or tomorrow, I’m ready for this and I have things to do today. That’s what she said to me. She was so calm and her heart was at peace because she went through the wilderness already and found God in the midst of it. I have served this church from 2002. That means it has been 14 years. It has been my privilege and honor to witness the passing of our members and attend their funerals to pay final respects.

Faith in the wilderness 
And I have witnessed that some had such genuine faith and some did not. How can I know whether genuine or not? Am I being so judgmental? But my friends, I can see genuine faith makes a huge and real difference when one is facing death. For the Israel people they needed the wilderness time before entering into the promised land. God purposely drove the Israelites into the wilderness. Why? The Israelites may have been freed physically from Egyptian bondage, but their hearts and minds were still bound by the memories of Egypt. They had to learn to rely on God, totally. God did not want them to live as slaves, but as God’s people. That’s why God put them in the wilderness to reshape them and refine them. Only after the wilderness, were the Israelites able to enter into the promised land and God was there for them all along, walking with them in the wilderness.

Thomas Martin, in his other book: Bred in Wilderness says “when Israel went out of Egypt and wandered in the desert, God became a Pilgrim with them in the dark years of their tribulation “. A few years ago, we heard from Reverend Ingee Kim during the ESM retreat that every story in the Bible and every story in our life has the theme of the movement from bondage to freedom. The fact that Israelites were out of Egypt was that same movement. And when they became God’s chosen people after the wilderness, that has the same theme of bondage to freedom. In this sense, God did not test Israelites in the wilderness, but trained them. God wanted them to put their trust only in him. God wanted them to learn a new way of living, not following the old ways – their ways, human ways – but God’s ways. God provided manna to them because God wanted them to put their trusts only on God. They could not store up more manna, even though they could gather them, because whatever amount was left over went bad. God wanted them to learn, to rely on God day by day, moment by moment. That is the new way of living, walking with God, wherever we may go. Jesus too, after his baptism, was driven by the Holy spirit to the wilderness before he began his ministry. Jesus needed time and place to learn God’s will alone in the wilderness.

If this is the case, how much more do we have to go through the wilderness period? When Katie told me about her condition on that day in April, Bob was there at Evangel hall aswell. He came to me and said to me: Reverend, I feel like I am Job in the Bible. These days, my friends, how are you doing? And how is your life lately? Has your life been like going through the wilderness helpless and hopeless? Remember that in that very moment you can experience the living God and God’s mysterious grace. Let us open our heart, open our hands, lift them up to heaven. That’s something we can do in the wilderness.

God will send us manner and quails when we have nothing. When we cannot do anything in the wilderness, I hope and pray that we will be able to see God truly and thus meet God. When we face and it feels like a huge wall to us, that’s the very moment we have to wait and see how God will work for us. You know the word Sabbath, have you heard of Sabbath? Sabbath day. God created the world in six days and God rested on the seventh day and he called it Sabbath. And it’s original. Meaning Sabbath means: To stop. In the wilderness. We have to stop being the old self, but to look for God for help. Psalm 46, echoes the same thoughts: be still and know that I am God. Unless we become still, we will not be able to hear God’s voice. The wilderness indeed demands our patience. But sooner or later, God will provide manna and quails or something we could not ever imagine before guiding us through. So do not dwell in the past, do not be afraid of the future, but go into the wilderness directly. Do not go around the wilderness, but take a good look at the wilderness and go straight through it. God will be there for you.

God saves us 
Viktor Frankl said this – He was a Holocaust survivor and a psychiatrist – We cannot control what will happen to us, but we can control how we will respond to that. When we walk through the wilderness and seek God’s help, we will find God sooner or later. God will make ways in the deserts and God will make rivers in the wasteland and God will provide us what we need and fill us up with God’s grace. My dearest friends, let us embrace wilderness in life and let us turn our wilderness into God’s true blessings. God is waiting in the wilderness to train us and to help us enter into the promised land. Who is a true spiritual person, who can be the true spiritual person? Those who would go through the wilderness and come out like pure gold, refined gold, with more appreciation of life. That’s the secret of wilderness and the secret of life. My friends, whenever you feel like you’re in the wilderness, just pause, stop trying to do something by your own effort. Be still and know that I am God. Listen to that voice and open your hearts, open your hands and ask God’s help. God will come and save you. God will provide something we never ever imagined before, because that is our God. That is our God.

Take a moment to reflect. You may be in the wilderness but God has a purpose. Let us lift our lives to God and ask for God’s grace and guidance. Help us go through this difficult time, give us strength and wisdom, and know how good you are, how great you are.