Voice Crying in the Wilderness

found in The Shepherd magazine, January 2017

https://app.box.com/s/fos4xec4bxc1cz1iffuwy44vy01491ys

The Voice Crying in the Wilderness 

A Homily of Saint Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, + 1867 A.D. 

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight. (Mark 1:3)  

BLESSED is the wilderness in which such a longed-for voice is heard!  How longed-for is that voice by which the imminent coming of the Lord was proclaimed!  For if it is enjoined that the way of the Lord be prepared and His paths made straight in the wilderness, then of course the Lord is not far away from it and desires to visit it.  For this reason the Lord’s prophet salutes it with joy and rejoicing: The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and blossom like a rose (Es. 35:1). 

That which was proclaimed so much in the wilderness with trembling and reverence as its voice, was hardly spoken in the world, for amongst us it was but a rumour and a disturbance in the society of men, as a rumbling sound and distraction in the city, which is scarcely ever or anywhere better than how the desert- loving king perceived it: I have seen iniquity and gainsaying in the city. Day and night they go round about her upon her walls; iniquity and toil and unrighteousness are in the midst of her. And usury and deceit have not departed from her (Ps. 54:9-11). And who is there that does not desire with David to flee afar off and dwell in the wilderness, so that there he might wait for God (see Ps. 54:7-8)? Who but those very people, who are fond of finding obstacles in striving for God, is not grieved to the greatest degree by the fact that they cannot escape from vanity and brokenness of soul, and that they do not have wings like a dove that they might y and be at rest? 

Oh, if only the Lord would grant us even a little time, to attentively ponder noetically on that wilderness which lies before His face, to accept in our hearts the voice which heralded His grace, and in tenderness to struggle to prepare His ways! 

When the Gospel, in directing our eyes to the way of the Lord, proclaims the voice in the wilderness to us, then let none of you, Christians, desire to take it upon yourselves to adopt without discrimination in your life and pathways in society, the ways of John the Baptist in that uninhabited land of the Jordan.  The prophet, hearing from afar the proclamation aforetime of the voice of one crying in the wilderness, which was manifested in John, doubtless had before his eyes something greater than just the Jordan desert.  Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain, and then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed (Es. 40:4-15), this is how Esaias depicted the transfiguration of his wilderness.  But John’s desert, at the manifestation of the Lord Jesus and afterwards, remained wild just as it had been before. 

So what then is this wilderness, in which the prophet heard a voice proclaiming the coming of the Lord?  In vain do we lose ourselves in various periods of time which will not return and in various places which are now beyond our reach, in order to discover it.  On the contrary, it is not so much a case of its being far off but rather of its being unobservable, as it is perceived through an ascent from the sensual to the spiritual, from the human to the Divine.  What is the wilderness in the common understanding of mankind, for his physical eyes?  It is a place which is inhospitable and uncultivated by man, although it is full of beasts and other living creatures.  Now, let us reflect on what the desert is with regard to spiritual sight, for the eye of God.  When the desires and passions, which belong to the bestial nature, prevail over man, then every spiritual thought abandons him, as well as every chaste desire, every good deed, and, one might say, they lower every higher domain of his nature, - what then is his soul but a wild desert?  But when the number of such animal men becomes great, then the whole body of mankind is flesh (Gen. 6:3), according to the word of God.  Perfect and spiritual men are rarer upon the earth than the ears of corn left after a harvest that has been reaped, - and then is the whole world, in the eyes of the Father of spirits (Heb. 12:9), not anything but a fruitless desert?  Finally when by its sons the very city of God upon earth impoverishes the Jerusalem on high, and when it is trampled down by the nations, when the chosen vineyard of the Beloved One yields thorns in place of clusters of fruit, when the Lord’s people forsake the fountain of living waters (Jer. 2:13), when they agitate and bar the way to the pure threshing-floor of heavenly truth, but then they are debilitated with an unquenchable thirst for the bitter sources of worldly wisdom, - how then has the Church Herself not become like a thirsting wilderness? 

And was it not in this unsettled, impassable desert which left much to be desired, that the Lord of glory and sublimity laid down a way for Himself?  Is He not leaving the blessed habitations of the Heavens, and coming to visit the earth, which had been devastated by sin and the curse?  Is He not taking leave of the sons of His own house, the pure spirits who are nourished by the light of His countenance, and is He not hastening to seek the sheep of His flock, who have strayed from Him in the mountains and thickets?  Exactly so!  The Lord, Who Himself dwelleth in the flood (Ps. 28:10), does not wish to consign to terminal desolation even one corner of His infinite domain.  With one hand the only-begotten Son of God prepares mansions in the glorious house of His Father for the repose of those who are saved, and with the other forms a tabernacle in the wilderness as a saving refuge for those who are perishing.  And the glory of His grace is made manifest thus: that in every slipping away, sensitivity might be upheld; every fomentation of pride is brought down; that inveteracy in one’s own unrighteousness might not be an impediment to the revelation of God’s righteousness; that thorns and stones, that is malice and bitterness, might not impede the peaceful approach of Divine love - Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed (Es. 40:4).  Exalt therefore, you who labour for an ungrateful world!  Exalt over this mystical approach, as did the ancient Israelites leaving Egypt.  Turn and direct the gaze of the eyes of your soul to the characteristics of the wilderness that is in us and around us, as you await your visitation and renewal, and when you hear the voice of the Lord Who shaketh the wilderness (Ps. 28:8), harden not your hearts (Ps. 94:8).  Journey with the One Who is present, Who traverses the wilderness (see Ps. 67:5, 8). 

And who can say that he has not sometimes heard this dread, but nonetheless kindhearted, voice?  The voice of John the Baptist, which calls to repentance and proclaims the approach of the Kingdom of God, is not the only voice crying in the wilderness, but a voice that has been repeated frequently and is continued uninterruptedly by similar voices.  Even way back, man, when he heard the voice of the Lord God, Who was walking in Paradise (see Gen. 3:8), in the first instance hid himself from His face, and in this way opened up the very first wilderness in Paradise itself, and then it was that the first voice in the wilderness was heard: Where art thou? (Gen. 3:9). The voice that sounded then, and has echoed innumerable times, is carried to all places and through all times, and will carry through unto eternity itself, calling to account those who are perishing in distancing themselves from the Lord.  If only people would nourish their hearts, if only they would listen hard with their ears, and not close their eyes, and with all their faculties would constantly comply with the voice of grace which is the precursor of conversion and salvation!  That voice is from outside, calling through visible nature; that voice is also within, proceeding from the depths of the soul; that voice is from above deriving from Divine revelation. 

The voice is in nature.  If it is little heard, that is not the same thing as its having ceased.  Being disconcerted allays the propensity for hearing it, and its invariability is manifest in silence.  An atheist would confess God, looking up to the Heavens and hearing their proclamations, had he not been born beneath them; the stoney heart would be separated from the confines of the earth, which has become cursed through the deeds of men, if only with all his being he had not been immersed within those confines rather than experiencing the voice for himself.   The heavens, says one who had ears to hear, declare the glory of God, that is, there are no tongues nor words in which their voices are not heard (Ps. 18:1, 3), which means there is no language nor any manner of expression in which the preaching has not been told.  Another, among these exultant voices of creation doxologising the sublimely wise Creator, distinguishes the painful sighs of creation subject unto vanity.  We know, he says, that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now (Rom. 8:20, 22).  These combined voices and sighings of creation - the voice from the fountain of the original good in the world and the sighing from the abyss from which evil issues forth; the voice of the order of heaven and the groanings of the earthly disorder; the voice of life and the gasp of death; the voice of the universal preservation and the groaning of the general decay - are all these not, for those who reason, types of the voice crying in the wilderness?  And is it not the cry of the worldwide wilderness from every side which addresses man: “Who but you was able to introduce evil into the creation of the All-good One?  Was it not you, who had been appointed their master, who made yourself their enslaver?   Was it not you who changed the kingdom of grandeur into a disordered desert, and around the fruits of life embedded thorns and thistles?  How long then will you yourself suffer and how long will you leave all creation to sigh and to travail in pain with you?   How long before you turn with your whole being, that you and all the governance which is yours might approach the One responsible for every good thing and every perfection, from Whom you have estranged yourself, but Who so manifestly still draws nigh to you in all ways, through His glory and His compassions?  How long will you not prepare the ways of the Lord, and make His paths straight?”  My God!  If only one instantaneous sigh from all Thy creatures might reveal the measure of their inner pain, then what a storm and a thundering it would create!  But all creation constantly sighs within our heart, unceasingly crying to our mind; but we do not hearken and still we revel in its suffering and destruction! 

The voice from the depths of the soul. This one is, perhaps, even less heard than the voice from nature around us, because it requires a more delicate sensitivity and a deeper attention.  Although without any doubt no one can better know the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him (1 Cor. 2:11), this spirit frequently becomes like a householder, who spends the greater part of his time at his house’s doorway, studying the passers-by, receiving those who call, talking and entertaining; but, as if it were an unfamiliar resting-place, his hidden store house he hardly visits at all.  He does not know its treasures, and all the concerns for the building up of his house he lays upon slaves and hirelings.  For the most part we live in accord with our outer feelings; we concern ourselves with passing pleasures; the wisdom of the world, the passions, the desires rule our activities.  Meanwhile what proceeds from our soul, what is hidden in its secret depths, we do not know, and we do more to strive to know others than to know ourselves. We turn down every possibility of entering into ourselves, and have not even one way into ourselves.  Blessed is he who has David as his example, who musters all his powers within that impenetrable country which is human nature, and which borders upon those high regions of the spiritual and Divine, and there discloses unto the Lord his way (see Ps. 36:5), who awaits his judgments which proceed from His Person.  I will hear what the Lord God will speak in me (Ps. 84:8).  From this height, which surpasses the understanding of reason, there enters into the heart the most lively feelings of love and faith inspired by grace.  For the Lord will speak peace to His people... and to them that turn their heart unto Him (Ps. 84:8).  But when this peace of God, which passeth all under- standing (Phil. 4:7) still does not visit us, then it is not yet opportune.  Then, typically, as yet is it that the voice of the Lord cannot find a straight way into the soul and heart, but only the adjacent pathways of emotion and fleshliness. Have we not experienced sometimes, in a moment of interior quiet, when the tiresome, vain thoughts return from their dispersal, when the insatiate desires release their subjects, and unexpectedly we start to take heed to ourselves (see 1 Tim. 4:16) - have we not experienced at such a time a certain emptiness in the spirit, a certain tautness in the heart, in which there is hidden a deep and constant sighing?  Watch constantly for these hidden movements within the inner houses of the soul.  Let us more often have done with worldly noise; it is choking.  Attentively block all the inlets to dispersion and you will recognise in your inner sighing that very thing whereby all creation sighs with you.  Little by little it will resolve itself into that tortuous groaning (see Ps. 37:9) like that of a lion, and then softened murmuring like that of a turtle-dove, and finally you will hear the true voice crying, in your interior wilderness, telling you that walking in the obstinate ways of the world and the flesh only wounds and tires your soul, that to no purpose you will broaden therein the wandering paths of the one who was expelled, and that thereby it will even more be estranged from the heavenly homeland, that it is its place to seek out the ways of return to the Heavenly Father and to the saving abiding place above, - to prepare the way of the Lord, and make His paths straight. 

The voice from revelation. Whereas the greater part of people from day to day hear with the ears things which lead to pessimism, they do not listen to the universal sighing of creation regarding the liberty of the children of God, and from hour to hour their heart becomes more gross, in that they do not comprehend the voice of that heart itself, which cries out, Thy face, O Lord, will I seek (Ps. 26:9). Thou dost not desire the death even of one incorrigible sinner, and inexhaustible are Thy means provided for his conversion, whom Thou Thyself dost pursue.  I am found of them that sought me not; I am sought of them that asked not for me (Esaias 65:1).  Time and again, Thou hast opened Thine ear to Thy chosen ones, hast filled their spirits with Thy life-creating word, and hast made them to be like trumpets of Thy voice, and mouth pieces of Thine utterances for the sons of mankind and in the languages of the sons of mankind.  God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past unto the fathers by the prophets, in these last days hath spoken unto us by His Son (Heb. 1:1-2), and thereafter with renewed plentifulness He poured out from His Spirit upon the Apostles that they might preach, and through them even until now He continues to pour It out on all flesh (see Joel 2:23).  We know that it is Thine in nite goodness and Thine ineffable wisdom alone we are bound to glorify for the gradual proliferation of Thy manifest contacts with us, and at the same time we are obliged to recognise the increase within us of a focus on, and a bitterness aroused by, the most extreme powers that war against us.  The treasury of Thy triumphant revelations, gathered over the millennia, are as never before opened a little unto all in these the last days (1 John 2:18).  The word that I covenanted with you from the ages, and Thy Spirit, which is clothed in the sacred writings, remaineth among you (Agg. 2:5).  It is proclaimed in the churches, it is talked about in homes, and then, as if in service to the Word, people are called forth with gifts, somewhat lower than the apostolic ones, which Thou dost plant in the hearts of those who love Thee, as if once more with the Apostles themselves (see their writings) to go about the cities and villages, the stately homes and the hovels, and in this way in every region to fulfill what was said: This Gospel shall be preached in all the world (Matt. 24:14).  Now, the voice, or more correctly, the totality of voices, in times and in places, cries in the wilderness.  The voice not only announces but also manifests Thy coming, not arousing only dread in the wilderness, but comforting also by the grace of its visitation; not only convicting the perverse and wily, but admonishing us that we prepare Thy way, and make straight Thy paths, establishing us as the servants who await their Lord, and like the virgins who make ready to meet the Bridegroom.  This living and life-creating voice is already spread over the far-away mountains and into the deepest valleys.  Thou knowest, O Lord, that there is no limit to the great, world- wide preaching, for we hear: this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come (Matt. 24:14).  Thou alone beholdest whether in this gloomy midnight, if the time indeed has come to cry: Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet Him (Mt. 25:6). 

Translated for us from the Russian version in the 

Trinity Orthodox Russian Calendar for 1984, 

published by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville.