Day 3: Finding God in the Desert

I finally slept a bit last night, so today I was feeling more like myself and ready for our first desert hike. Our morning began as always by saying the Shema together, then our bus headed to the Judah Wilderness. This meant that our bus pulled up to a random spot next to the desert and we started hiking through a wadi (“flash flood canyon”). As I mentioned earlier, RVL is teaching us how to be disciples of Jesus, and he uses the physical world as his teaching points.

The main theme for today was how God cares for hurting people. As God’s people, it is our responsibility to care for people who are hurting, especially those who are in chronic pain such as the financially poor, ill, orphans, widows, prisoners, etc. One word picture for this is David’s description of walking through a wadi in Psalm 23

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:1-4

This imagery is of a sheep following the shepherd’s voice through a narrow wadi, in which there is very little grass, with steep cliff’s that cast “shadows of death” as you can’t see the edges of cliffs. The sheep has no hope of food or safety without following the shepherd. Yet, if the sheep listens to the shepherd’s voice, he will make it to the next tuft of grass and through the dangerous wadi.

Another word picture is that we are to be “shade” for people when life’s desert is hot, because God is our shade (Psalm 121). RVL used the example of the rotem (“broom tree”) which is a small tree that shepherds use in the Israeli desert to give them just enough energy to make it to the next rotem. RVL described how many people had been “shade” to him when his mom was killed by a drunk driver. Powerful stories.

RVL used a number of other desert images to illuminate passages in the Bible. Because 70% of Israel is desert, the “sand” in the Bible refers to wadi sand. Ocean sand is called “sand of the sea”. In Matthew 7, Jesus says that a man who listens to His teaching and does not do what is says is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The hearers would have realized how stupid someone would have to be to build in a flash flood zone. Before RVL, I didn’t realize the magnitude of this imagery.

We discussed how God led the Israelites out of Egypt, because Egypt was a land of following the “eyes”. Egyptians did what their eyes enticed them to do. God wanted his people to be people of “ears” by following His voice. This is a relevant word picture to describe our difficulties as God-followers in American culture. Americans are all about doing “what is right in our eyes” (Judges 17), while God is asking us to allow His greater perspective to be what shapes us. Without the Bible, we are left with only our own limited perspective on life.

We passed a mustard tree, which was an impressive word picture in and of itself; RVL told us that this whole tree had grown since his last visit (a year ago). Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a man who planted a mustard seed in his garden (Matthew 13). Jesus’s hearers would have thought it was ridiculous to plant an invasive species like mustard in their gardens, but Jesus was making a point that His message would grow quickly and upset the establishment.

After the Judah Wilderness, we drove to the Wilderness of Zin. We hiked to the city of Avdat, which was a Roman-style city built up on a hill by the Idumeans (descendants of Esau). However, we didn’t go to Avdat to see Avdat, which is a typical RVL method. We went because Avdat displayed what a behmah (“judgment seat”) around Jesus’s time looked like. Jesus would have stood on the lithostratos (“pavement”) waiting for his judgment by Pilate. The Avdat behmah was not in great shape, but the behmah in Jerusalem is now 12’ under the road level, so this worked.

RVL dramatically told Mark’s gospel version of Jesus’s interrogation and crucifixion at Avdat. It was amazing to hear how the details of Mark’s gospel closely mirror the inverse of a Roman “Triumph”, the ceremony where Caesar claimed to be the Son of God. Mark was writing to a Roman audience who would have been very familiar with a Roman Triumph – especially around the time of Nero – so he wanted them to understand that Jesus was truly the Son of God, not Caesar. RVL is a fiery speaker, so everyone was moved by his retelling.

After another full day, we headed to the Isrotel Hotel near the Red Sea. Gotta get some sleep before our first “real” hike (according to RVL) tomorrow.