Taking Time Out

One of the things I have discovered since moving to New Plymouth is the attraction of Mt Taranaki. We have a clear view of the Mountain from our home and recognise the way it beckons us from our gate each time we leave the house.

Over the years we have spent many happy days exploring the lower tracks on the mountain but aware that we tread as guests on sacred land – yet they are not without their dangers. Tramping NZ suggest a list of 21 essential items you need to take with you, even for a simple mountain day hike, because you never know what might happen to you or to the weather! It's good to leave prepared so we will return home safely.

While the mountain is still considered, geologically, to be a young mountain, it has an interesting history. It's official name is Taranaki Maunga and is a dormant stratovolcano that was formed over 130,000 years of volcanic activity, with it's last major eruption being in the year 655.

The Mountain and the land around it is held sacred to local Maori, and has been revered as a deeply spiritual site and a source of physical, cultural and spiritual sustenance as well as a final burial site. However, during the English colonization of New Zealand in the 1840's – 1860's the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863 allowed the confiscation of land belonging to any tribe, or section of a tribe, judged to have rebelled against the Queen's authority, and this included the mountain and more than a million acres of Maori land. However, finally, on Jan 31st 2025, New Zealand Parliament passed the Collective Redress granting the mountain all the rights and responsibilities of a human being. The park surrounding Mount Taranaki was also renamed 'Te Papa-Kura o Taranaki', with management plans requiring dual approval from the conservation minister and iwi leaders.

This week's Gospel reading (Luke 4:1-13 ) we hear of Jesus going out into into the Sinai Desert which also held profound importance to the Jewish/Hebrew people. The desert also contained a mountain (Mt Sinai) that was sacred to them. The desert also held it's own sacred history and beauty to the Jewish/Hebrew, as well as it's well known dangers. Wile the desert lacked both of food and water, it was renown for earthquakes, snakes, scorpions, and attacks from enemy tribes. A traveller could well journey out into the desert and never return. I wonder how prepared Jesus was for his time spent in the wilderness, and what he took with him?

In contrast, in New Zealand, we live in a very beautiful country. I was reminded of this by the Hyundai advertisement on television some time ago which encouraged people to lose themselves in the beauty of creation because by “Getting Lost in the empty wild places of New Zealand we might find our true selves again”; words that also offer us a wonderful introduction to this weeks Gospel reading.

In the reading, Luke records how Jesus, having laid down his carpentry tools, prepares himself for his public ministry by spending time in the desert wilderness. The first thought I had, was that also are spiritual pilgrims, whether we recognise the term or not. We also are on a journey through life, and we need to take time out to find and connect with our true selves. We also need to make space in our lives to simply enjoy the wonder and beauty of God's creation, especially in the empty wild places – whether it be our garden or local park or further afield.

In our readings today we find Jesus taking time out to spend it on mountaintop in the wilderness. The 'wilderness' was a familiar setting in the Bible because it was seen as an-between space where ordinary life is suspended. We might call it “a thin place” where the veil between this world and the eternal world becomes merged. A place of transition, a place of waiting, a place to meet God, and a place where our identity shifts and new possibilities emerge.

By going into the wilderness, Jesus was also identifying himself with his Jewish past where his Hebrew ancestors were referred to as 'wandering Arameans' because they spent 40 years making their way through the wilderness. In the process, they discovered the wilderness also became a thin place for them. A place full of signs and wonders.

St Paul was another biblical person who spent time in the wilderness. After his conversion experience on the road to Damascus, rather than rush to Jerusalem and seek out the other disciples, he withdrew into the Arabian desert for three years (Gal 1:17) and during that time he discovered the desert became a place of waiting and prayer, as well as a place of personal growth as he allowed God's Spirit to transform him and instruct him. When he finally emerged from his desert retreat, Paul was ready to communicate the divine truth to others through his preaching and writing.

So the gift the wilderness gave to the Israelites, and to Paul, and to Jesus, was learning to trust in God – that God is trustworthy, and when they were ready, God would and did lead them. Such trust may not have come easily to them. It also required the gift of faith that God was trust-worthy and knew where he was taking them. It also required the gift of hope – that God knew their final journey's end.

For us also, Jesus seeks to be our Way. To be our companion and our hope – and also to be our destination. And we know that such hope is trustworthy – or to use the words of St Paul written from his own experience:

Faithful and absolutely trustworthy is He who is calling you, and He will fulfill His call by making you holy, guarding you, watching over you, and protecting you as His own. (1 Thes 5:24)

Lent is a time when we are invited to enter a 40 day journey. I wonder what sort of journey you will make, or you are already making over the next 5 weeks? And what sort of stories you will recount when we finally reach the joy of Easter?.


Kia mau te rongo me te pai ki a koe i to haerenga

May you find peace and good will on your journey.

Phil