Advent 8 - Preparing the Way

Sermon given by Rev. Christine Ng on December 7th based on Isaiah 40:1-11

What a time to be speaking about “God in the World.” On the surface, at least, there has been plenty of cause to question “Where is your God?” Verdicts that make a mockery of human justice, 12-year old boys shot by those who should be protecting them, more hostages killed in the Middle East despite our efforts to free them, another typhoon hits the Philippines, Ebola continues to rage in Sierra Leone, I could go on. The past two weeks in particular it feels like we get one piece of news that strikes us in the heart, and before we can begin to recover, we’re hit by another. I don’t know about you, but I’ve felt battered and heart sore.
And as I watch and read I can’t help thinking, this is not the world I hope for, this is not the country I hope for, it’s not what anyone hoped for. There are moments when it doesn’t even look like home, not the home I thought I had, that I thought I knew.
And I wonder, if perhaps that’s what the Babylonian exiles felt. They had come through a catastrophe. Their city and homes destroyed. Marched far away to a foreign land. Disasters like this, they make people afraid, and despairing. They undermine faith in God and in the traditions of the world that seemed, at least, to make the world orderly and secure.
And it had been long, so long. They believed God lived in the Temple in Jerusalem. Had God even gone with them when they were forced into exile? “Where, where is our God?”
“Here,” replies the words of the prophet, “here is your God.” The words of Second Isaiah recognize the people’s pain, and are like a healing balm poured over those deep, aching wounds. “Comfort, O comfort my people,” tenderly says your God. Your exile is ending. It is time; it is time.
And we hear the familiar words that echo is the gospels, a voice crying out “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” I’ve been thinking a lot this week about wildernesses and deserts. The how painful are the experiences that land us in that place. And I think perhaps we miss some of the power of these passages because for many of us the wilderness is a lovely place. Most people when asked where to they feel most connected with God will say in nature. And myself I’m partial to the high desert landscape. I feel very at home there.
But in the Bible, the wilderness and the desert are not such benign places. They are what’s left in the aftermath of destruction. Not Yellowstone or Yosemite, more like Hiroshima after the bomb. Great pain, loss, and confusion have put us in this place. And it is the landscape we must cross to reconnect with God. It’s a landscape we cross every Advent as we are called to “prepare the way of the Lord.” Advent is a time of waiting, yes, but also of pilgrimage – the kind of pilgrimage the magi began long before Jesus’ birth.
And Advent is a threshold moment – a doorway in which we stand between what is and what will be. We are still in exile, in the desert wilderness, but we will be in a place where God is revealed. It has been said when we use the future tense of the verb “to be” death has been negated, they are  words of hope. And this passage is full of them. “Every valley will be lifted up, and every mountain and hill will be made low; the uneven ground will become level and the rough places will become a plain.”
These words resonate strongly as just how uneven the terrain is before us has recently been starkly revealed. And also just how far we have to go.
But notice, the text doesn’t say specifically who will lift up the valleys, lower the mountains, make level the uneven ground. It’s in the passive voice. “every valley will be lifted up” – by who?
I think it is by us. It is up to us, with God’s help, to cross the threshold, step out into the wilderness and build that highway. God shows us the way, but we’re the road crew. Ours is a world under construction. And knowing that, we need to step out in faith and begin the work – begin to build that highway that connects us with each other and that reveals the presence and the love of God.
And like any major highway project – and Lord knows we’ve experienced our share of highway projects in Dallas, it can be disruptive of everyday life. It can lead to unsettling times. And there are times during construction when we may wish the project had never been started. But we keep on in hope, holding onto the vision of what it will be like – that, as the scripture says, “then the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all people – all people – shall see it together.”
But there’s another aspect to this as well. Do you remember a few weeks ago when lake effect snow covered the northeast? There were all these images of snow piled high, covering houses, bringing normal life to a standstill. There were these amazing images of people building covered tunnels out of their doorways. Someone opened a door that had snow solid packed in front of it and carved out a beer fridge. Now that’s thinking.
For a time, the world was like a frozen wilderness again. No roads you could see, let alone travel. Familiar landmarks obscured. Wave after wave hit. No time to dig out in between.
Eventually the snow plows came, the weather warmed enough for the snow to melt. But for a while there was only individuals with their shovels – clearing the snow from cars and house roofs before they collapse. Finding a way to get to the store to get baby formula, or food for elderly neighbors or family. Making a way, where there didn’t seem to be a way. Building highways in the desert. Being the hands of God.
John Robinson, retired Presbyterian minister, tells a story of such a storm one Advent. Before the plows could clear the streets, he was able with the help of some others to get to an elderly parishioner to check on him, bring him some food, and find a way to get him to safer shelter.
The power was out, he wouldn’t leave, but they sat around the fire and talked. The man was lost in that frozen wilderness, despondent, without hope. He said to John, “I don’t think Jesus will come for me again this year.” He had been waiting, it seems, forever, to see God. And he had no hope that this Christmas would be any different. He would be alone in the dark.
And yet, there was John. Bringing him food. The warmth of his presence. “Comfort, o comfort my people.” Christ ahd already come to him, and he couldn’t see it, and he wouldn’t leave.
Sometimes before we take on that construction project, step out into the world’s wilderness to build a highway for our God, we need to prepare our inner landscape first. We must be ready, prepared to do the work of God. What are the rough places within us that need to be healed? Can we find places of connection between the rocky terrain inside us and the topography around us? Are we open to seeing how God is working with us through us and others, and how that will change us and our world? Can we hear God’s voice in the voices of those trying to build this road with us, those whose voices have too often been silenced?
God comforts us in this passage, yes, but it’s not just a pleasant holiday sentiment. God comforts us so that we may become what God has wanted us to be all along, God’s children, God’s agents, God’s road crew empowered by God’s love to build highways for our God in our world, so that we, and our brothers and sisters, will be exiles no more.
Because in this work, perhaps our most powerful tool is our voice. “Cry out!” we are told. “Lift up your voice.” Let it show people the uneven places up ahead that need work, let it comfort those stuck in the valley’s of despair. Let it bring words of Advent hope. God is with us, and God’s glory will be revealed, God’s word will stand forever – and that word is justice, that word is grace, that word is love.
I believe we are living in an Advent moment; exiles still, but standing at the threshold of what is and what can be, what will be, with the help of God. And we are called to step out – out of our comfort zones, out of our despair, tomake that pilgrimage to where the holy will be revealed, will be born, in us, through us. God in our world. Emmanuel. When all people will see it together.
“See” the prophet says, three times so we don’t miss it “see” the Lord God comes – “He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, and gently lead the mother sheep.” As we travel the road, making it as we go, God goes with us. Do not be afraid. Here is your God. Amen.