I have never seen a desert bloom. The closest I have come was when I flew into Southern California at just the right time of year. All those brown hills were covered with a feathery wash of green. Isaiah describes it today:
The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to them,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
They will see the glory of the LORD,
the splendor of our God.
This passage comes toward the end of what is known as “First Isaiah,” written before the fall of Jerusalem. This longest section of Isaiah (first 39 chapters) is filled with predictions of coming doom. For all the Truth of that which Isaiah spoke to his people, he also wanted to give them a picture of hope. The Gospel today is that picture.
What Makes the Desert Bloom?
Rain, of course. But what is the rain? Since this is Advent, we would say, “The Coming of God…Jesus, the Christ.” Yes.
But how does Jesus come today? This passage from Thomas Merton struck me this week as I read it. Merton, who had struggled with his vocation as he discovered at Gethsemane how much monastic life is community life, had recently been appointed to mentor the “scholastics,” junior monks who were studying to be priests. He found it challenging, yet, surprisingly, very rewarding.
Merton had yearned for a “desert” at Gethsemane where he could just be alone with God. In his first ten years as a monk, he found only wisps of it—like the wispy green of dry lands seen from 10,000 feet. He had spent most of his days in a vault with old books and a typewriter or wandering around the woods and fields that surrounded the monastery. Now, it is 1952, years before his writings, such as Seeds of Destruction or Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, gave him a prophetic voice to mid-century America.
Reading between the lines of his journal, he had discovered the wonder and beauty of the mass; he had fallen in love with Scripture; he saw God’s wisdom at bringing him to Gethsemane—but all that only increased his thirst for God. Then this portion of Isaiah spoke to him and he wrote:
“What is my new desert? The name of it is compassion. There is no wilderness so terrible, so beautiful, so arid and so fruitful as the wilderness of compassion. It is the only desert that shall truly flourish like the lily. It shall become a pool, it shall bud forth and blossom and rejoice with joy. It is in the desert of compassion that the thirsty land turns into springs of water, that the poor possess all things. There are no bounds to contain the inhabitants of this solitude in which I live alone, as isolated as the Host on the altar, the food of all men, belonging to all and belonging to none, for God is with me, and He sits in the ruins of my heart, preaching His Gospel to the poor. (Thomas Merton, Sign of Jonas, p 334).
Today’s Gospel
How fascinating the words, the connections that come today! In the Gospel Jesus is teaching the wise men of Israel. He is at home in Capernaum. It is early in his Galilee ministry. He has a reputation. The scribes and Pharisees have come to check him out. There are so many people around Jesus learning that some men who have brought a friend to Jesus in hope of healing can’t get close to him.
Undaunted, they tear off some tiles from the roof and lower the man at Jesus feet. Jesus looks at him and says, “As for you, your sins are forgiven.”
The wise men are incredulous—only God can forgive sins! They wanted to see this Jesus heal, but they weren’t prepared to hear him speak what seemed to them to be blasphemy.
Ah, but the wisdom that comes today is, “Only God can heal.” It was, of course, God healing the man on the mat. Jesus could read hearts, and he saw that this man’s healing depended on an experience of mercy for his sins.
Often, sins are at the root of what ails us. Our sins, the sins of others that hurt us—evils done, evils absorbed, evils festering, evils coming out as anxiety, anger, pride, selfishness, autonomy, entitlement. As a marriage and family therapist, I see them every day. They are evils that create a desert for all who live with them.
The Coming of God
The Coming of God—to a sick man, to a sick culture, to the poor or the rich or the weak or the strong—the Coming of God heals. The Kingdom of God heals.
And often he comes as we do what Jesus did today: we look at the person in front of us and say, “Your sins are forgiven.” We experience compassion, even for those who have hurt us. We experience “feeling with” the person who has created a desert for us. “Feeling with”—the literal meaning of the word compassion.
When we experience the feeling with—our hearts soften. Often the Greek word that is used in the Gospels to describe the effect of seeing someone’s pain on Jesus is a word that means, “Jesus felt it in his intestines.”
In the Gospel, Jesus let the desert bloom of the man on the pallet. At Gethsemane, when he had been ten years a monk, Jesus let the desert bloom in Thomas Merton—and his scholastics. Interestingly, as I wrote this, memories came, I forgave in a deep way, and the desert blooms this morning in me.
Prayer:
Here is your God,
he comes with vindication;
With divine recompense
he comes to save you.
Come, Lord Jesus! Fill us with compassion—a compassion that forgives, that lets go, that touches and heals, that lets us be touched and healed. Come, Lord Jesus.
NOTE: You may have noticed a recent post “Write for Us.” As of next week, I will be writing the Sunday reflection instead of Monday. Fr. Obilor has responsibilities that have changed his availability. He will be a tough act to follow. I hope to bring some of the scholarship he brought to the readings. This change just happened, so say a prayer that I can make the transition. Blessings, all!
