One of the many things on my bucket list is to be in a desert when the wild flowers bloom. I have seen pictures of this phenomenon, and I so hope to experience it in person. To me, to see the change of the desert floor must be amazing to experience. For, to see what is normally a brown, scrubby landscape, transformed into a sea of purples, yellows, reds and blues would be overwhelming. I can only imagine that I would feel a sense of profound joy to be able to see that. It doesn’t happen every year so I need to be patient for this to become a reality, but here’s hoping!
I can empathize with John the Baptist in today’s Gospel reading. He has spent his entire life – literally jumping in his mother’s womb at sound of Mary’s voice! – telling as many people as he could that it is time to prepare for the Messiah. His cousin, Jesus, came to him and was baptized, and still John waited patiently for “something” to happen.
John finally sends some of his followers to Jesus asking him to clarify if someone else will be the Messiah and, does he need to wait a bit longer. John had endured much suffering in his life from the Romans and Jewish leaders as he stayed true to the life he had been called to live. John wanted the poor to be fed and the sick to be healed. But also, like most Jews, John wanted the Roman occupation to end. He chafed at the oppression his people suffered and thought that the time was at hand to end that tyranny.
As we have been taught, the Jews were looking for a particular kind of Messiah, but Jesus was very different from that hoped-for Messiah. Jesus quotes Isiah to reassure John that, yes, Jesus is the One. But that the end results John and so many others were expecting were misguided. John needs to be patient and wait for Jesus’ plan to become reality.
It’s not surprising that John was hoping to see the end results in his own lifetime. I want instant gratification too. Like the meme says, “I don’t exercise often, but when I do, I expect the results to be instant and spectacular.” When Christmas is celebrated, there is so much talk of the infant coming to save us all and to end suffering. And here we are approaching Christmas once more, and still we wait to be saved and to see suffering ended.
One of these days, I’m going to learn that it’s not on my timeline that things happen, but on God’s. And the things I want to have happen, may, or may not, align with what God wants to have happen. I have to be patient and continue to do the work to be the hands and feet and ears of Christ and not worry about how it all will come to fruition.
In today’s First reading we hear, “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.” One day I’ll get out to the desert to see the flowers bloom. I don’t know when that will be, but I will be ready. In the same way, if I am patient and do the work of the Lord, I know I will experience a peace and joy that is so much more than flowers of purple, yellow, red and blues. It may not be what I thought I’d be doing, but it will be what God has called me to.
Every day.