Second Sunday in Advent
READING: Matthew 3:1–12

Wilderness Places

I wonder what images come to mind when we hear the word wilderness. How might you describe it? Perhaps you imagine a physical landscape: barren, bare, a stretch of land where life feels thin and fragile. Some of us can even place such places on a map. Others may picture an overgrown tangle –  the kind of wilderness that emerges when a once-tended garden is left to itself, like the Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall, where nature quietly reclaims what was abandoned. And some may not imagine a place at all, but a season of life. A time when things feel chaotic or out of control, when familiar certainties fall away and we no longer know quite which direction is home. I wonder which kind of wilderness John the Baptist had in mind when he stepped out into the desert and began to speak.

The wilderness in Scripture is more than a location on the edge of Judea. It is the terrain of human experience: the dry places of uncertainty, the lonely stretches of transition, the silent spaces where old maps no longer fit the shape of our lives. Most of us arrive in such places more often than we admit. Sometimes we choose them –  seeking quiet, simplicity, or clarity. But more often we stumble into them after loss, disappointment, crisis, exhaustion, or the slow unraveling of what once felt secure.

Yet the surprising truth is that the wilderness is not a place of God’s absence. Again and again Scripture reveals it as the place where God draws near. John appears in the wilderness not because he is hiding, but because this is where God does new things. The wilderness becomes God’s meeting place – a threshold where old ways fall away and new life has space to emerge.

When we inhabit wilderness places in our own lives, they often feel barren, frightening, or confusing. But they are also places where inner awakening begins. In the wilderness, distractions thin out, and we begin to see ourselves with greater honesty – our fears, our hopes, our longings. Richard Rohr , an American theologian and Franciscan friar would say that the wilderness pulls us beyond our small, defended selves. It wakes us up. Beneath all the noise and activity, a deeper truth begins to surface. Wilderness becomes the classroom of the true self.

Wilderness is also where communal transformation takes root. When people went out to John at the Jordan, they were not escaping the world; they were stepping toward change. In the wilderness, a new kind of community was forming –  not based on status or pedigree, but on shared longing for God’s future. Advent invites us to imagine communities that are not shaped by fear, scarcity, or competition, but by compassion, justice, and honesty. And transformation rarely begins in comfort. It begins on the raw edges where we realise how much we need one another.

This is also the place where courageous honesty finds its voice. John’s words in the wilderness are unvarnished and clear. He speaks the truth about injustice, self-deception, and the danger of relying on inherited identities rather than genuine change. The wilderness has a way of stripping the soul bare. It brings us face-to-face with the questions we have avoided: What needs to change? What have I been holding onto that no longer serves life? What false stories am I ready to release? Honesty, spoken gently and in love, becomes a form of hope.

In wilderness seasons, deep relational presence becomes possible. Sam Wells, vicar of St Martin’s church in London,  reminds us that God’s primary way of loving and engaging with us is by being with us. And it is in the wilderness that this presence becomes unmistakable. When familiar structures fall away, we begin to notice the quiet companionship of God – and of one another –  in ways we often overlook when life feels tidy and predictable. We listen more carefully. We show up with more tenderness. Relationships deepen not in perfect conditions but in shared vulnerability. Wilderness becomes the place where we learn to carry each other’s burdens lightly, lovingly, without judgement.

And over time, wilderness becomes the place where joyful expectation of God’s nearness emerges. At first, wilderness feels like scarcity….an absence of God’s love. But in Scripture, it is often the place where unexpected gifts arrive: manna, water from the rock, voices calling, heavens opening, angels ministering. Advent reframes the wilderness as the place where hope stretches its wings. Slowly we begin to sense that God is not far away but already moving toward us, already stirring in hidden places, already preparing something new. The wilderness is where joy begins its quiet, steady return.

If you find yourself in a wilderness place this Advent –  somewhere between what was and what will be, between clarity and confusion, between sorrow and hope –  know this: you are standing on holy ground. Wilderness is not punishment. It is invitation. It is the landscape where God comes close, where the heart awakens, and where the path begins to straighten for the One who is always drawing near.

In wilderness places, God makes room for new life. And in Advent, we learn to expect it.

Photo Credit: Baseline Photos (Envato.com)