ADVENT 2B: Something Incredible is About to Happen

ADVENT 2B: Lectionary: Isaiah 40: 1-5 (6-11)
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.  A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

First of all, with all due respect to Mr. Handel's presentation, this passage was probably not originally written with us or our tradition in mind!  This really is talking about the people of Israel.  It really is talking about bringing comfort to a people who have wandered in the Judean wilderness.  Probably written toward the end of the Babylonian exile, this writing offers a vision where a highway (a REAL highway) through the wilderness will be made level and straight.  If, as most assume, this part of the book that we know as Isaiah was written after the exile, it would have been soon after 539 BCE when Cyrus of Persia conquered the Babylonians and, not really caring whether or not the Israelites stayed, allowed them to return to Jerusalem.  So imagine a highway that, typical of the ancient world, would have originally been built to accommodate royal processions.  And so God is depicting a highway made for a grand procession led by the Almighty.

The just-released exiles are returning.  But to what?  Their city and their way of life lay in ruins.  They can't just go back and pick up where they left off.  They have to feel that God has deserted them.  They are looking for comfort.  They are looking for solace.  They are looking for God to put things back the way they were before.  But God has something different in mind.  Rather than repair, God promises recreation; rather than vindication, God promises redemption; and rather than solace, God promises transformation.  God is making something new--lifting valleys, lowering mountains, and ultimately, when all is said and done, revealing a glory that we've never seen before.

In this Advent season, we are given the same vision.  We are not promised solace.  We are not promised that Emmanuel, God With Us, is coming to put our lives back together.  In fact, can you feel it?  The world has begun to shake.  The valleys are rising; the mountains are leveling.  Something incredible is about to happen.  The light is just beginning to dawn.  Life as we know it will never be the same again.   Soon the fog will lift and we will see that the road does not lead back.  It instead leads us home.  But we're going to have to be willing to leave what we know.

In this season of Advent, give yourself the gift of not going back so that God can show you the Glory that is about to be revealed.

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

Meanderings

We spend a lot of this Lenten season talking about roads, journeys, wandering, pathways, and "getting back on track".  Do you sense that there is a theme?  The truth is, life is full of roads, whether it's a 40-year long road through a desert wilderness, a leisurely afternoon drive through the Texas wildflowers, or a quick drive to the grocery store.  I just completed a three-day meeting (that was close enough for me to stay at my house) and in the six times that I was in the car, I actually took six different routes.  One included a side errand to Target, one took me out of my way enough to drop Maynard off at Yuppie Dog (yes, "Yuppie Dog"--I supposed I've become completey urbanized!), one involved lunch at a Chinese restaurant, two involved "alternate" routes than that nice woman on my GPS told me to go, and two were because I was talking to my friend who was with me and missed the exit. (As a matter of fact, yes, that does happen to me often!)  But the point is, life is full of roads and there are probably more moments than not that present us with the choice of whether to take the one that will get us there the fastest, the one that will provide the most scenic route, the one that will avoid the traffic, the one with which we're most familiar, the one that will get us back on track, or the "one less traveled by".

I don't really think that God lays down some road at the beginning of our existence and then expects us to stay walking straightly down the center.  In other words, I don't necessarily think that veering from the road in front of us is wrong.  Truthfully, if anyone tries to tell you that they have stayed on one straight road or have walked it with one focus or one thought their whole life, I would propose that they are probably standing not far from where they began.  The Scripture passsages that involve roads seem endless (no pun intended)--wilderness roads, roads to Jerusalem, roads to Emmaus, roads to Bethlehem, roads through Galilee, the road to the Cross, and the roads home.  Perhaps all those roads are not necessarily there to show us the right one to walk; perhaps instead they are there to show us that no matter what path we're one, we'll eventually end up returning home.

And upon returning, we will perhaps be a little weary, maybe even worse for the wear.  But roads tend to make us wiser, certainly with a new perspective of home and of those we've met along the way.  And often, when I've gotten completely off the path that is best for me, God has gently nudged me back, dusting me off and setting me on my way.  But more often, and, I think even more profound in my life, are those times when God, with infinite grace and mercy, somehow brings the meandering path to me. (Oh, good grief, I missed the exit again...!)

So, on this Lenten road, travel with an awareness of all the choices you have and the way God brings a road through them all.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both
and be one traveler, long I stood and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim,
because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there
had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!  Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh!  Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
("The Road Not Taken", Robert Frost, 1920)



Grace and Peace,

Shelli