It was in the middle of the night just this time of year when I was in a carful of friends driving across the Idaho desert. The roads were clear, but piles of dry snow were scattered along the verges, caught in the sagebrush that lined the road. It was cold and cloudy.
In this part of Idaho, near a place called the Craters of the Moon, lava flowed as recently as 2,000 years ago. Like in Hawaii, hardened lava floes stretch across the valley floor, broken here and there by grasses and bushes whose roots are just starting to find purchase in the newly formed rock. Craters of the Moon is aptly named because with its hardened lava, pits, and craters, it does look like the moon’s surface.
My friend suddenly pulled the car to the side of the road and jumped out, scrambling over heaps of lava until she dropped out of sight. The rest of us followed, wondering, until we found her crouched down, warming her hands in the steam of, of all things, a natural hot pool.
In that part of the country, wherever the land jumps up into a hill or a butte, along the edges you’ll find springs whose water pools in any low spot. The water streaming from these springs is hot, because the magma is still so close underneath the bedrock.
My friends and I knelt down, enjoying the warmth of the steam in the cold of the night and splashing our hands in this unexpected pool of warm water that was pure gift, pure delight.
Christian author Henri Nouwen, in Life of the Beloved, reflects on finding a spiritual well in our personal deserts.
“Every time you listen with great attentiveness to the voice that calls you the Beloved,” he writes, “you will discover within yourself a desire to hear that voice longer and more deeply. It is like discovering a well in the desert. Once you have touched the wet ground you want to dig deeper.”
The well in the desert—the voice that calls—compels us because it is the voice of love held within God.
There are times in our lives when we are particularly open to hearing God’s voice. These days of watching and waiting before Christmas may be one of those times.
If we are honest within ourselves, even the midst of all that is keeping us busy—parties and decorating and gift-buying—this is a deeper season than that. Along with the joy, echoes of grief ring as those we have lost crowd around our spirit. We yearn after those we love, and ourselves, too, perhaps, as illness, addiction, mental health issues, and relational issues bring their burden.
Even as we scramble with our to-do list, part of us also wonders, and waits, and yearns.
The advertising and consumerism we see all about us creates artificial desires for things we do not need, and for things that we scarcely even want. But underneath all of these desires is a longing for something we can hardly even describe. It’s a longing that feels like an emptiness, a pressure, a hunger, an unquenchable thirst.
This hunger and thirst is for God. We thirst for the well of God’s presence like the desert traveler thirsts for the pool of water in the desert. The psalmist sings, “As the deer longs for the water-brooks, so longs my soul for you, O God.” And in another place, “You speak in my heart and say, ‘Seek my face.’”
It is God’s desire for us that gives life to our desire for God. It is God’s desire to be near us that give us our thirst for more of God.
And this yearning for a deeper drink of God is what we call hope. The emptiness that sometimes takes up residence just under our ribcage, the restlessness settling over our chests the sorrow that constricts our throats and presses against the inside of our eyes, these are signs that God has been with us and that, thirsty, we are yearning for more.
These, strangely enough, are signs of hope, active within us.
In our reading from Isaiah today, Ahaz, king of Judah, was faint with fear. The kings of Syria and Israel were trying to mount an attack against Jerusalem. The hearts of Ahaz and his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.
So God sends the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz.
God wants to give Ahaz a sign, any sign for which he asks, to let him know that God will be victorious. The land of the two kings Ahaz dreads will be deserted and God’s people will be rescued from destruction.
But Ahaz refuses to ask for a sign.
Ask for anything, Isaiah urges—let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. Ask! The Lord wants to show himself to his people. The Lord wants to be known. So please, Ahaz, just ask.
Ahaz demurs. He is afraid to put God to the test. Perhaps he is afraid his asking will seem faithless. Perhaps he is afraid that if he asks, God will disappoint and prove Ahaz’ faithlessness founded. Perhaps Ahaz discovered that his hope, his yearning for God, is all shriveled up and blown away by his quaking fear. He will not ask. He will not seek God.
But God comes anyway. God’s delight cannot be bound. God’s joy cannot be constrained. God wants to be known by Ahaz. God will not rest until he has become one with his people and has brought them fully and splendidly alive in the brightness of his love.
And so God comes. Not as a well in the desert. Not as a burning bush. Not in the wind or the earthquake or the fire. But in the whisper of love on a cold winter’s night.
Look. The young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel, which means “God is with us.” God comes, a baby, wrapped in bands of cloth and laid in a manger. And the angels and shepherds come to witness this great miracle—God himself slipping quietly into the flesh of his beloved humanity, coming to finally set them free.
You may have come here today asking for a sign. Or maybe you have never asked for a sigh. But here he is: God with us, Immanuel.
Whether or not we have tasted of the water in the desert and sought out the well, here it is: the delight of the Lord pouring out upon us in rivers of joy. God is seeking us. God is seeking you. Every time we hear God’s voice calling his love to us, our thirst is awakened again, pricking us out of our sleep and back to life. Our thirst is whetted, our yearning is roused, our hope is set aflame.
Because it is God whom we ultimately desire. It is the joyous company of the Holy Spirit that we long to keep.
God is here among us today. Immanuel. God with us, Immanuel, is here, whose joy is so complete that he has taken on flesh and hung on the cross so we could be part of it.
The Rev. Kristine Blaess, DMin, is rector at St. Paul’s Church, Murfreesboro, Tennessee. She spent her first decade of ordained ministry in rural Idaho serving congregations in majority LDS communities. Her doctoral work emerged from her desire to help congregations flourish as their leaders grow ever deeper as disciples and disciplers of Jesus Christ.
