Advent 2 Year C

Sometimes God’s love is like a beautiful highway. . .

Luke 3:1-6

When my wife Kathy and I lived in a small apartment on the North Coast of California, we would quite regularly wake up to grinding and pounding sounds as construction crews were cutting out and replacing select sections of Highway 101 just outside our bedroom window. When all that roadway quilting was done, I fully expected, however naively, that I would get onto that highway one day to see a brand new, smooth and blackened road as far as my eye could see. But that isn’t quite what happened. It turns out that after all that grinding and pounding, we ended up with a patched highway.

Now, as I pondered over our readings assigned for his week, it seemed like this might be a good metaphor on the way that I so often approach the holy, sacred and ever so short season of Advent. Every December, when I hear the call to preparation, I want so much to answer the call. 

I’ve been in love with Christmas all my life, so I very willingly engage in a little patching here and a little painting there, but so often Christmas comes and goes, and sometimes I find myself wondering if I missed a turn-off somewhere.

However, when I carefully read the Advent readings assigned for this week, I realize why I sometimes actually do miss the turn-off. I realize that for Christmas to come in all its glory, to really capture and savor the Christ that comes into our world to bridge the gap between God and humanity, I need to envision a brand-new road, not just patch up the old one.

If you have plenty of time on your hands because you’re a priest who only works one day a week, you might notice that Luke actually misquotes Isaiah in our Gospel this week. Luke writes, The voice of one crying out in the wilderness; prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

What Isaiah actually said was, A voice cries: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Did you catch the subtle yet profound difference? It’s not that the voice is out in the wilderness crying, it’s that the voice is pleading for us to actually build the highway in the wilderness. This is proof for all the English teachers in the world that punctuation is everything!

So, as it turns out, we aren’t just called to build a road anywhere, we are specifically called to build a road in the wilderness. Building a new road in the wilderness had special meaning for those who heard Isaiah’s words. After the exile, the wilderness became a symbol of anything that stood between them and God. 

In the time of Jesus, people would avoid the extreme desert regions and would travel on roads that took them around the wilderness regions, even if they had go considerably out of their way. So, Luke is telling us to get ready because John the Baptist is down by the Jordan again, and he’s all ready to preach his You can build it sermon.  No patch jobs allowed on those old roads because now you can build a superhighway right through the middle of whatever separates you from God.

God fashioned a highway on the shore of the Red Sea for Moses and God’s people. God fashioned a highway on the banks of the Jordan for Joshua and God’s people. And once again, on that first Christmas, God fashioned another brand-new highway right through the middle of the little town of Bethlehem! 

On this Second Sunday of Advent, God is reminding us that through Christ, God stands ready to help us. God will gladly provide all the heavy equipment for this job. God really does want us to find our way into God’s presence. God is forever luring us toward the Divine on the road of compassion, love and reconciliation. So, like Mary, we really only need to say Yes, and construction will proceed.

Have you ever wondered why Luke gives us an account of all those historical figures at the beginning of this Gospel?

In the fifteenth year of the rule of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was

governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of the district of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiahphas, the word of God came to John, son of Zechariah.

Luke mentions all those characters as a kind of time signature because he wants us to know that all of this took place in REAL TIME for REAL PEOPLE. The prophets weren’t just writing good quotes for preachers to use later. The time signature could just as easily read in the fourth year of the presidency of Joe Biden when Gavin Newsom was governor of California. It could just as easily refer to our time and place. The point here is that it’s never too late.

Here’s the best part of all: God calls us to co-construct this road with God; we are co-creators of our journey with God. Our spiritual walk with God is always hand-in-hand. Our course life isn’t charted out in advance, God has given us the freedom to try a few short cuts here and there and even take a few scenic routes.  God is willing to be surprised at what’s around the next bend.

But no matter which way we turn, God will be right there with us!

That’s the promise of our faith, and that’s why I think we bother to get up and gather in our churches on Sunday mornings.  In the face of such a gift what else can we do except to gather in gratitude?

Perhaps this gives new meaning to the words of the prophet Malachi as he describes the one to come as one who will refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. It’s as though we are polished and burnished by the relentless love of Christ!

My prayer for all of us, as the light of our Advent Wreath grows brighter each week, is that we might take God up on the offer, and that hand-in-hand with God, we might build that brand new road that cuts right through whatever wilderness stands between us and the amazing love that came down at Christmas!