"They Entered the Wilderness"

I think God led Israel out into the wilderness so they would embrace their dependence on God, and on each other. The wilderness forced them to become a holy community!

Exodus 19:2-8a

June 14, 2026

Dr. Todd R. Wright

Take a moment to center yourself in this story.

Like the Israelites, we have entered the wilderness.

Our story is not nearly as dramatic –

we haven’t been freed by God from 400 years of bondage in Egypt;

or escaped through the midst of the Red Sea with Pharoah’s army hot on our heels;

we aren’t about to be given the Ten Commandments for the first time;

or witness divine thunder and lightning, trumpets and smoke on the mountain.

But like them we have left behind our ordinary lives, for just a moment –

left our jobs, our homes, the sounds and smells and signifiers of civilization –

to enter the wilderness, this wilderness.

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What does that feel like? Close your eyes.

What do you hear?

What do you smell?  

There is something about the wilderness that makes it clear that you are not at home.

Does that frighten you or excite you?

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When I went on an Outward-Bound trip to Joshua Tree National Park last spring, I was chasing a wilderness experience as close as I could get to what the Israelites would have had in the Sinai or Jesus would have had after his baptism.

It was a stark landscape full of sand and rocks, snakes and otherworldly Joshua Trees, wind and silence.

It was not what I am used to in Kanawha City – streets and shops, squirrels and people walking their dogs, the sounds of Life Flight helicopters and traffic on MacCorkle.

The difference was exciting … and a little frightening!

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Why would God bring God’s people out into the wilderness?

Is it simply the most direct escape route, or does God have more creative motives?

Is it to get them away from the abuse of Pharoah, or to get them to be alone with God?

I think, for a moment, entering the wilderness must have taken their breath away!

I think it was a shock that left them in awe, but also bewildered and afraid.

They were free, yes! Free of the whip; free to make their own choices; free to worship their God.

But also wrenched free of everything that had governed their lives and guided their paths.

That much freedom can be overwhelming!

I’ve told you that when I hike the Appalachian Trail there are white blazes to follow.

But when I went to Joshua Tree, suddenly there were no trails, just endless stretches of sand and rock, all the way to the horizon, in every direction.

In that kind of a situation, it is easy to get lost, so you realize that you are dependent on others; and that you will only survive by working with them.

I think God led Israel out into the wilderness so they would embrace their dependence on God, and on each other. The wilderness forced them to become a holy community!

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So can that happen when we enter the wilderness, even for a couple hours?

Can we feel that vulnerable, even when we know it won’t last; even when we are not exactly fleeing captivity; even when we can see parking lots, and people fishing, and planes flying overhead?

Can Worship in the Park give us a small taste of the meal the Israelites ate for 40 years?

Perhaps, if we are willing. Perhaps, if we are seeking. Perhaps, if we are open to being taught.

And what might that lesson be?

One scholar writes that “because this phrasing [of this passage] looks back to the place departed from (Egypt) and the condition left behind (slavery), this journey is easily misinterpreted as merely freedom from rather than freedom for.”[1]

I think he’s on to something.

We do not come out to worship in nature because we need freedom from routine; or a break from the pace of life in the city; or a cleansing from the muck of the world.

No, we come because we need to be freed, again, for our role as God’s people.

What is that role?

Moses tells a people with dust in their shoes and a hunger for direction,

that God freed them, with a mighty hand and awesome deeds they would repeat for generations,

so that they could obey their heavenly Lord rather than some gilded king;

so that they could be molded into God’s special treasure;

so that they could become a kingdom of priests and a nation set apart for God:

priests so they can help guide one another back to t[i] “Jesus calls Matthew the tax collecto" from season 1, episode 7 of The Chosenhe trail when they go astray; and

a holy nation so they can bear witness to what it looks like to follow God with all your heart!

That’s the role God has freed us for too!

May our time in the wilderness remind and inspire us! Amen

[1] From D. Brent Laytham’s reflections on the text for the Christina Century, 5/24/17