Desert Witness: Solitary and Free
Author: Andrew Comiskey
December 17, 2023
“Who
are you…what do you have to say for yourself? ‘I am the voice of one crying in
the wilderness…’” (Jn. 1:22-23).
Advent
pops our holiday bubble, cracks our globe of fake snow, and gives us John the
Baptist. Twice. Half of Advent centers on this burning bush who blazes for the One-to-come.
John
exposes our need to be saved. Again. To do so, this desert witness stands alone
and reveals our deserts. He invites us to come away from the party into
solitude to face inconvenient truth and the wonder of His love.
Morphing
into a ‘gay’ teen in junior high, I recall my newly converted grandmother wailing
at a pre-Christmas gathering over her unbelieving kids (my aunt and dad); both were
cold to Christ and warm on booze and materialism. Unable to reach them, she
cried late at night—loudly. I went to bed a little scared. Why was she crying?
My
eldest brother Jay began to drive her and friends to Pentecostal healing meetings
where he caught the Jesus-bug. Fast forward 3 years: Jay too broke down at a holiday
gathering in tears and anger for his family refusing the Jesus-thing. My brother
Joel and I were high on something or another. We laughed then got mad that ‘Jesus’
was wrecking another Christmas. Late that night I wondered who Jesus was.
Burning
bushes both! How blessedly disturbed are we who behold these Johns ‘standing
before us, solitary, austere, weathered by the storms and loneliness of the
desert—but authentic’ (Fr. Alfred Delp). The tender indignation of Grandma and
brother levelled ground for Jesus.
My daughter
creates level paths as she coordinates our local Living Waters group. She leads
the team in pre-gathering prayer by declaring God’s goodness. She aligns us
with Him—Lord of Life, able to dispel the pollutants she (we) collected over a
long, uneven day. We praise Him. Then she leads out with a confession: she admits
how she choked, faltered, failed to ‘hold the charge’ of His marvelous love
that day. She weeps a bit. That frees the rest of us to admit the holes in our
armor. Blessed gaps. Misery invites mercy. Leveled, we are ready to impart
healing. Katie blazes the way.
Marco
waxed ‘John the Baptist’ at his wedding to Ania, exactly a year ago in Krakow. (Happy
First Anniversary, you two…) As he toasted the crowd, he went out on a limb to
declare God assuming flesh in Christ (the Incarnation) as key to reconciling
all of us to good flesh, our sexual humanity. He got specific: Jesus broke the
grip of his homosexuality and freed him to embrace Ania. Not too much
information. Not for forerunners like John the Baptist. Like Marco Casanova. Ania’s
family and some family friends from Texas discovered something new about Jesus
and Marco that night.
Burning
bush in truth. What may seem merely too personal for a wedding (how Jesus transforms
disordered sexual identity) is an affront to thoughtful young Christians today.
Most conclude that a person’s longstanding same-sex desires are destiny, impermeable
to Jesus who yes, rose from the dead and maybe even is alive and well in the
Host but can’t touch identity confusion.
Advent
reasserts the truth, exposes our inertia, tempers holiday highs, and invites us
down to the One worthy of our surrender. Katie gets it: He is the Ultimate
before whom authentic ones witness the gap and bow before Him.
‘Oh,
that once again people could readily perceive our enthrallment, our true,
ultimate allegiance to this One, to this Christ, in whose Advent we stand! Our
confession is our very being, consecrated by the Lord God, testifying for
itself and for the Lord God, for Christ, who is our mystery but who is also our
strength and our certainty, and whose Advent alone is the one and only
salvation of the world’ (Fr. Alfred Delp, Advent Homily, December 14th, 1941).
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