Throughout the Gospels, Jesus heads into the wilderness, often alone. The first instance occurs in Matthew 4, right after His baptism, where He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness and fasts for 40 days. At subsequent points in His public ministry, Jesus also withdraws into the wilderness to pray. The Evangelists recount these stories for us, not only as history, but because we should learn from His example.
During His public ministry, Jesus was in high demand. His work healing, exorcising, teaching, and preaching resulted in crowds clamoring for His attention. They needed His help, and the Gospels tell us He was moved with compassion for their plight.
Why, then, does Jesus take time out to go into the wilderness? He is doing important work, and yet even at moments when people are ready to receive that work, He withdraws away from them. In our overworked, too-busy society, that can seem strange, and perhaps even a mistake. The people need Him, and yet He leaves. However, we know that Jesus is the perfect man, not only sinless but also the ultimate example of the just person, so we know that His decision to withdraw into the wilderness is virtuous.
As the Athanasian Creed teaches, our Lord Jesus Christ is perfect God and perfect Man. He is fully human, with a natural human need to rest and recharge, but His trips into the wilderness are not simple vacations. Sometimes, He fasts, prays, and is tested by the Devil. Yet other times, there is this tone of simply needing to withdraw from the world. G.K. Chesterton, in his ending to Orthodoxy, notes that Jesus did not conceal His tears or His anger, but nonetheless there were times “He hid from all men” with an “abrupt silence or impetuous isolation.”
In J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy-Stories,” he suggests that recovery, escape, and consolation are basic human needs which fiction, especially fantasy, help fulfill. In recovery, he discusses the need for renewal of health, especially of our mental health, through “regaining of a clear view.” Escape, he notes, is sometimes looked down upon, but escaping from something that is not good for us is virtuous. We rejoice for a kidnapping victim who escapes her captors, or an addict that escapes their addiction, for instance. Consolation is the joy from the unexpected good, in turn pointing to the ultimate joy of the greatest goods.
The withdrawal of Jesus into the wilderness, which we can and should emulate, seems to be for these reasons. The foremost way in which we can emulate the withdrawal into the wilderness is through retreats or pilgrimages; setting time apart to withdraw from our daily routine and engage things of higher value, especially the things which bring us to Christ. In a retreat or pilgrimage, we dedicate time to prayer, silence, spiritual reading or talks, visiting holy sites, and similar practices for recovery and renewal, particularly the component of regaining our perspective on the rest of life. This is justifiably a time of escape, where we pull away from or give up things that might distract or limit us. During Lent, many of us do that on a smaller scale, making some sacrifice to help us escape from what should be taking less of our attention, so as to focus more on what deserves it. Having escaped from what we should leave, and renewed our cleared vision, we may well experience consolation.
Another way that we may emulate Jesus’ time in the wilderness is to head into the wilderness literally, even if apart from any specific spiritual purpose. Activities such as camping and hiking can assist us with regaining perspective; the beauty and otherness of nature help us to escape from things from which we need to detach ourselves and to place our worries in a larger context. And if we view them with a sense of wonder, we may certainly experience the joy of consolation. This is especially true if we can see them with a love for the Creator who gave them to us.
Tolkien’s essay listed these goods, of recovery, escape, and consolation, as particular things that fantasy offers. By building a secondary world where things work differently, and where marvelous and amazing things can occur, fantasy helps reset our perspective of what is possible, and what is amazing about our own world. Opening our imagination should help us to appreciate the possibility and the wonder in any world. From there, we have the chance to find joy, in what Tolkien described as the euchatastrophe: the sudden and miraculous grace that causes the unexpected turn to joy. Tolkien describes this as the characteristic mark of this type of story, that “however wild its events, however fantastic or terrible the adventures, it can give to child or man that hears it, when the ‘turn’ comes, a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart.” And in the best stories of this genre, “when the sudden ‘turn’ comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and heart’s desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.” Tolkien does not hesitate to say that this glimpse of joy is a glimpse into ultimate reality, including the great eucatastrophe of the Incarnation and Redemption.
Superhero fiction, whether comic books or movies, can participate in these functions of fantasy. By giving us larger than life characters with amazing powers, by telling fantastic and bombastic stories, they often provide the resetting of perspective. By taking us into their alternative universe, which has been long constructed by many authors into its own “sub-creation,” as Tolkien calls it, they provide escape. And in the best stories arcs, they can sometimes rise to the level of consolation. In Final Crisis, or The Death of the Mighty Thor, or a handful of other stories, I know I have experienced that flash of joy that Tolkien is talking about, and which points to higher realities.
The example of Jesus shows us that we should at times withdraw from the world. We should imitate Him by setting aside the time to pray and fast, to conduct a spiritual retreat or a pilgrimage, to focus on our relationship with God. We should also sometimes imitate Him by heading into some type of wilderness, disconnecting from our high-technology world and resetting our perspective by immersing ourselves in Creation. We can also participate in this renewal, escape, and consolation in some ways by reading stories that open our imagination, inspire wonder, and show the path to joy.
Matthew Heffron
Matt Heffron is an Iraq veteran and an attorney. He lives with his wife and nine kids in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and loves Catholic tradition, practicing martial arts, riding motorcycle, and superheroes.