A Way in the Wilderness

© 2002 Don Rogers

At the last minute I agreed to substitute teach in that time called "Children's Church" when the younger ones would be taken to another room, away from the Sanctuary for "church at their level". The curriculum resources for that Sunday did not capture my attention but the lectionary reading in Isaiah 43 did. "Behold, I am doing a new thing: now it springs forth. Do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

I went out into the play yard and brought in a shallow pan filled with dry sand. Then I hurriedly went around the church and the neighborhood and gathered some flowers - red bud, forsythia, some daffodils happened to be in bloom. I got a pitcher filled with water and took the flowers and water in to be kept out of view.

I gathered the children on the story telling rug as they came in and talked about what was going on way back in Isaiah's time - people far from home. I asked about feelings of homesickness, about being in a strange place. I read the scripture to them once, then again. I asked them to close their eyes for the second reading and imagine those people.

Then I told the scripture again as we moved to the table and looked at the dry sand in the pan. We talked about a desert. The heat. The dryness. Looking lifeless. Desolate. Once again I asked them to close their eyes and imagine what would happen to that desert if God made a way there with rivers around. How would God change that desert?

Now with eyes open I poured some water into the sand and we made a river in that sand box. And I asked - what would happen even in sandy soil if they got water? As I asked that I poured the flowers out of the sack onto the table. With an excitement of scurrying chaos and careful planting an oasis arose in our little desert. New life. A new thing. We started to chant the scripture together. "I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. I will make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert."

The children were still dancing and singing this praise of God when their parents appeared at the door to pick them up.