This purple season of Lent began in the early centuries of the church as a time of preparation and for refocusing upon our discipleship.  That isn’t just for Lent.  It is good to be called to renewed focus.  There are times and seasons when we lose focus.  We don’t feel all excited, anymore; we don’t feel connected; we don’t feel fed.  We are headed to Easter.  These purple days are a particular reminder that we don’t get to Easter without going through the wilderness: the wilderness of this wayward world, the wilderness of our wayward hearts, dissatisfied and unhappy.  No, we aren’t dissatisfied and unhappy all the time, maybe not even most of the time, but how we feel it when we are!  It’s not the unhappiness that ought to have grabbed our attention, though.  It’s the waywardness: that needs our attention.

Christians have reason to celebrate every day, though we tend to confine our celebrating to two days of the year—fifty-four if we’re feeling really happy.  We are walking with God.  We are walking with Jesus.  These purple preparation days remind us that Jesus does not only walk out of the tomb: he is first walking to a cross.  The empty tomb happens because of and only after the cross.  No cross, no empty tomb.  Is there no lesson for our own lives, our own living, in that?

Wilderness—I like the idea of camping, but never have been.  I like watching YouTube videos of guys building cabins out in the woods “off grid.”  It must be awfully lonely out there, sometimes, though most of these guys have at least a dog or girlfriend to help out.  Shelter—that’s towards the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid.  It’s not low in importance, though: it’s foundational!  No thriving without shelter, safety.  These guys and their off-grid cabins—I can’t help thinking what if?  What if the cabin burned down?  What if the generator went out in the middle of a blizzard?  What if he didn’t get his piping sealed properly, and the carbon monoxide got to him?  Our homes can be hazardous to our health!

We need better shelter, stronger safety.  “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High / will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  / I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, / my God, in whom I trust’” (91:1-2).  The Most High is shelter.  To rest in His shadow is good.  It’s cooler in the shade.  In the shadow, it’s more difficult for the predators to see us.  If there’s shelter for us in this shadow, then the one casting the shadow is big enough for us all.  Enemies think twice when they see formidable defenses.  Truly, God is our fortress: a mighty fortress is our God.  He is our refuge, our safety, our place of quiet rest, near to the heart of God.

If Maslow is right, and human thriving requires a foundation of safety, requires shelter—and food, drink, rest—how much more spiritual thriving?  Isn’t that what true human flourishing is: spiritual thriving?  Physical thriving is good, yet is that the highest and best human aspiration?  There’s no spiritual thriving without spiritual striving.  There’s no striving where there is no difficulty, no aim.  There’s no thriving where there is no Amen.  Our reach must exceed our grasp.  Another word for that reaching, striving, is faith.  To awaken to faith is to awaken to life: and how we strive, and thrive, then!

The next verses give assurance of safety in the midst of disaster; these verses are disturbing, taken literally or figuratively: ten thousand falling to this side and that by pestilence, terror, and plague.  To begin to sort it out, let’s recall Israel’s forty-year experience in the wilderness.  Why so long?  Because of failure to know God or even to want to know Him.  This we see in the book of Numbers.  Disobedience, faithlessness, had consequences: disaster, destruction, death.  The disobedience, though, was nothing new, there in the wilderness.  It had been a constant since the Exodus departure from Egypt, and even before, going far back, all the way to a garden, well-watered, abundant with fruit, love, peace, and every good thing, everything necessary for human flourishing, because that garden was God’s garden, and God was there, with us.  The garden, all the world for Adam and Eve, was gorgeous.  We made, and make it still, a gorgeous disaster.

Disobedience came quickly, came easy.  Faith has been hard and costly, and we haven’t yet quite grasped that our faith is the fruit of a prior faith, an eternal faith, faith that is power itself: God’s faith, His faithfulness.  Great is Thy faithfulness!  What does the psalm tell us?  We will be safe; we will find refuge with God and “His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.” (91:4).  Not our faith but His faithfulness.  Don’t misunderstand me: faith is our safety, but it is safety for us because our faith is a manifestation of God’s faithfulness to Himself, to His promise, to His Word.  He swore that He would preserve a people for Himself; that is exactly what He is doing.

Those who live by faith flourish—not always materially, not according to the measures of this world.  That’s our foolishness, isn’t it? that you and I now are beginning to measure things according to the measure of the Spirit.  Defeat, destruction, death—these overtake all of us, here.  Afterwards, for us, life, brilliant, glorious, eternal, flourishing: perfectly fed, perfectly at peace, perfectly sheltered, perfectly loved.  What do others believe they have to look forward to?  What are their grounds for believing that?

In this life, we shall be perfectly guarded—not for this life, but for the life to come.  The psalm sings that, for those who desire to dwell in God, to find and have life in Him, “no harm will overtake you, / no disaster will come near your tent” (91:10).  The psalmist calls us back to the wilderness experience, those forty years of wandering with God.  Disobedience is the fast track to disaster, spiritual disaster.  Faith is not the guarantee of no disappointments or difficulties.  Faith is the lens through which we can begin to see more clearly all the good God is preparing for us.  Faith does not make us immune to the sad and bad things of this life.  Faith is the assurance that sad and bad is not the end of the story, not all there is to the story.  We can be wounded, of course!  But with Christ, we rise.  The greatest harm, the deepest disaster, is spiritual, and Christ saves us from it!  Disaster and defeat come in this life, so, too, grace and salvation.  Salvation lasts longer.

In the wilderness, the Tempter used this psalm in order to encourage disobedience: “For he will command his angels concerning you / to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, / so that you will not strike your foot against a stone” (91:11-12).  Nothing terrible can happen to you!  Do whatever seems good to you: you’ll be safe, no matter what!  An invitation to undisciplined, self-glorifying, self-indulgent living.  Cheap grace.  An invitation to faithlessness masquerading as faithfulness.  Jesus, at the start of Revelation, warns the churches against that.  If we have the words of this book but lack the Spirit that makes these words the Word, we end up running to destruction; our spiritual enemy knows God’s Word, too—don’t let him know it better than you!

Our desire to dwell in God, to live by faith as faithful people, is not our own choice, not our decision.  It does not happen by our own power or strength.  Our faith is a gift from God.  Our desire to know God truly and to live truly for Him, comes from Him.  From Him, by Him, for Him.  Faith, then—God’s gift, God’s grace, and God’s call—guards us in all our ways.  Now, guards can protect us from external threats, but they can also guard us against ourselves, against that innate, nagging, whispering, insistent disobedience—that desire to do whatever we want and justify it afterwards, as though to be loved by God and to enjoy the freedom God gives means we can pursue whatever desire, so long as we don’t think of it as sin or call it that.  Thank God for those guards!  Walk the line!

Oh, we stumble and dash our feet against many a stone, but we are guarded so that our stumbling does not ruin us.  We stumble, but angels lift us up, lifting our eyes, lifting our hearts, lifting our souls, to remind us of whose we are, and how we are to walk.  How are we to walk?  The psalm tells us: “You will tread on the lion and the cobra; / you will trample the great lion and the serpent” (91:13). The serpent will bite your heel—it hurts!  It’s poison!  Yet, as we dwell in the Most High, we shall crush that serpent’s head.  We shall because God did.  God said He would, from the very first.  God gave His Word, and Jesus crushed that serpent’s head on a cross, abandoned, rejected, mocked, bloody, crying out to his Father to forgive them, forgive us, who had no idea what we were doing, before we did.

God saves those who love Him.  He saves those who do not love Him.  He does it by giving His love.  He does it by creating love.  Those who turn to Him, who rely upon Him because they know He is all they have to rely upon, all their shelter, all their sustenance—such as these, God saves.  Salvation comes to those who trust in the name of the Lord.

God continually puts this truth to the test in us.  Rather than rejoice, we complain.  It is hard.  Sickness.  Disappointment.  Hurt.  The constant enticement around us, and within.  Isn’t there another way?  Can’t there be another way?  Pastor splashed water on me when I was three months, three years, thirteen, thirty-three.  I’m good to go.  Can’t I just say I love the Lord, that I trust Him completely?  Isn’t that good enough?  Can’t that be good enough?

Words come easily and we say many things.  The Word is costly.  It costs a lot to live.  Christian living means something.  Faith means something.  It’s going to change us, you, and me.  God sends Jesus out into the wilderness for a reason.  We are here in the wilderness for a reason.  What are we relying upon?  In what is our confidence?  God knows the answer; He wants us to know the answer, whether we want to or not, because He has chosen us for life, and, by God, He’s going to make us live.  God is always helping us to pray, to sing, with the psalm, and to hear the Lord as we sing: “[They] will call on me, and I will answer [them]; / I will be with [them] in trouble, / I will deliver [them] and honor [them]. / With long life I will satisfy [them] / and show [them] my salvation” (91:15-16).

We’ve called, cried out to Him, and here He answers, here He is, for us, by faith, by the Spirit.  He is with us, our victory, our Savior, always, and in all our trouble, to deliver us and honor us—God, honoring us—imagine!  Eternal life is long life, indeed, beloved.  Have you hungered for salvation, rescue, hope, help; have you thirsted for grace, peace, love, assurance?  He is here, for you.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.