The Four Esses

Dave Brisbin 3.21.21 Fifth Sunday of Lent. With Lent winding down, we remember that we have been approaching this Lent not as a negative time of giving things up as penitence for sin as much as the positive, affirmative action of introducing the elements that would clear out our distractions, purify our intent, and mirror Jesus’ time in the fortyness of his desert wilderness. What did Jesus positively have in the desert? Nothing material, but the desert provided all he needed spiritually—the four esses: silence, solitude, simplicity, and stillness. Isn’t it interesting that the absolutely essential elements of spiritual formation, of human meaning, purpose, and identity, are also the most endangered species in our modern, urban life? Think on it: our lives naturally produce the exact opposite of the four esses: noise, community, complexity, motion. Now it’s not that the things our lives produce are bad—they are beautiful and essential as well—but left unbalanced, they delude us into thinking they are all we are, and we forget our deeper selves. Even in Jesus’ day, he needed to leave his small village with its noise, community, complexity, and constant motion to find the environmental qualities that would force his focus inward toward his Father. And when the desert’s four esses had become his own, he strode out of the wilderness carrying those four elements wherever he went like an astronaut in a pressure suit. These qualities, these four esses were both the impetus toward and result of Jesus’ encounter with his Father, why he could say with authority that he and the Father were one, and why everyone who encountered him was struck by the depth of his presence and the simple truth in his teaching. If we want to follow Jesus to the oneness he occupies with Father, we will need to be willing to place into our lives this silence (turning off extraneous noise and devices), solitude (alone with God time), simplicity (keeping just enough), and stillness (interior balance in a busy life). God’s address is always right on the corner of silence, solitude, simplicity, and stillness. If we want to knock on his door, we need to go there first.