Theological Truth: Advent provides us with time to make sure we are on the right path and a reminder about what it looks like.
Come Holy Spirit and kindle in us the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and we shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth.
As a child, I spent a lot of time visiting my aunt and uncle in Baton Rouge. I loved going there because they had two acres with a creek and woods and horses—all of which were enormously entertaining to a suburban kid more familiar with concrete and streetlights. Baton Rouge isn’t that far—as the crow flies—from my childhood home, and it only takes about an hour to get there now that the interstate is complete. But “back then,” before its completion, the drive required going around swamps and over waterways. Even after major sections of the highway were opened, I remember the detours that forced our exit from the freeway onto two-lane, curvy roads with watery impenetrable swampland on each side. I wondered how my Dad knew the way; it seemed impossibly confusing, wild and threatening. I hoped fervently that by the time I could drive, the interstate would be finished—a highway where not even fools could get lost.
Having had a driver’s license for a while now, I understand that getting lost is inevitable. It happens to both individuals and communities, spiritually as well as geographically. We lose our way. We miss a turn. Sometimes we fall prey to the temptation to take a shortcut. Occasionally we deliberately ignore the signs and proceed down a dead-end street. But whatever the reason, eventually we all get lost—individually and communally, geographically as well as spiritually. Thanks be to God who sends the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation. Who say, “You’re on the wrong road. Admit it. Get back on the Holy Way.”
That is both Isaiah’s warning and invitation, the diagnosis and the promise. Most of the first thirty-nine chapters (what is often referred to as “first Isaiah”) warns God’s people that they have lost their way. They have veered towards idolatry, they have steered away from the poor and needy, they have followed wealth and earthly power rather than the riches of God’s grace. They’ve traveled too far down the wrong road, and now seem hopelessly lost, deep in the desolate wilderness, beyond help and utterly disconnected from their God. Bad things happen because they lose their way. The Babylonians conquer their country, destroy the Temple, and cart off most of the population to a foreign land.
But Isaiah also promises that they are not stuck forever at this dead end. He offers a promise of hope, a reminder of God’s faithfulness.
- God keeps his promises, even when we don’t keep ours:
- “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing.”
- We may forsake God, but God never forsakes us:
- “Say to those who are of a fearful heart, ‘Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.’”
- God provides a way when we don’t see a way:
- “A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way… no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray….the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing.”
As a somewhat directionally-challenged traveler, I am greatly comforted by the image of a clear path through difficult and dangerous terrain that is so obvious that not even fools can go astray. But it’s not always so easy to know if we’re on the right track. Not even John the Baptist, the last in the long line of Jewish prophets, is sure. He sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the One who is to come. Jesus’ response gives us all a way of checking our spiritual GPS coordinates. When the blind receive sight, the lame walk, and lepers—the outcasts of every age—are included, that’s when we know we’re in the right neighborhood. When the deaf begin to hear, the dead return to life, and the poor finally get some good news, then we’re on the Holy Way. But the opposite is true also. The lack of those things are signs that we are headed away from the Kingdom.
As we enter this third week of Advent, preparing for the coming of Christ’s kingdom (not only his nativity!) it’s a good time for a map check. Where are you? Where are we—as a church, as a community, as a nation? What signs and signposts do you see? What landmarks are guiding our way? Do we trust that Jesus is the One who is to come, or have we turned after another? Possibly the promises of earthly power, or the allure of wealth? Maybe we’re going down the intoxicating road of outrage, or chasing the mirage of security and self-satisfaction that comes from demonizing or scapegoating others? Perhaps we all need to pray for recovery of sight, especially where we have turned a blind eye to perversions of justice. Maybe we should beg for restoration of hearing, particularly where we have been deaf to the cry of the poor. Wouldn’t we benefit from strengthened hands, so that we can lift up the needy and come to the aid of the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner?
This is what the Holy Way looks like. This is the kingdom God promises. This is the Way Jesus provides: the embodiment of sacrificial love, restorative justice, transformative mercy, life-giving connectedness. We know it when we see it. We’d be fools to stray from this path, but even when we do, God leads us back. Trusting God’s faithfulness, and the promise to always have mercy, we can look up and check our whereabouts. If we don’t see the familiar signs of the kingdom or the fruits of the Spirit, especially on this third Sunday of Advent, we pray with renewed urgency:
“Stir up your power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let your bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us.” Get us back on the right path—the Holy Way revealed in your Love made flesh in your Son, Jesus the Christ. Help us to not only see signs of your kingdom, but to be signs of your Kingdom, so that all Creation “shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
