Hello,
In this season of Advent we hear John the Baptist and the prophet Isaiah
tell us to in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.”
Well, living in the Pennsylvania “wilderness” (the foothills of the
Appalatians), I have come to a new appreciation of “prepare the way of the
Lord, make his paths straight.”
Unlike where I have previously lived, rural Ohio and South Dakota, there
are no straight roads in Pennsylvania.
Every road twists and turns around mountains and streams, making my
travels slower than the straighter than arrow roads of Ohio and South Dakota,
roads on which I have been accused of slightly exceeding the speed limit. Five miles in South Dakota takes five
minutes, or less to travel. In
Pennsylvania, travelling five miles in less than ten minutes is a rarely
accomplished feat. Winding roads
slow a person down, even me.
Also, I have discovered that the winding roads of Pennsylvania, roads
that wiggle their way through mountain forests, can even be sometimes
impassible. Just a couple of weeks
ago, as I rounded a bend while driving up a mountainside, I quickly had to slam
on my breaks. A line of cars and
pick up trucks had formed. The
problem: a huge tree had fallen across the road. Since it was the only road over the mountain, there was no
use of turning around. All we
could do was wait for the volunteer fire department to come and cut the tree
and move it off the road, a task that took the better part of an hour.
Winding and tree blocked roads can slow up and even prohibit
travel. So, in this season of
Advent, the season in which we await the Lord’s arrival – his remembered
previous arrival in a manger, his promised present arrival every day in our
lives, and his concluding arrival at the end of time – we are told to “Prepare
the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Make his way straight so that nothing slows him down, and
unclutter them so that he can get through.
But what if your life is a long and winding road, full of hairpin twists
and turns of failure and self destruction? What if your road is cluttered with sequoias of doubt and
boulders of sin? Will Jesus be
late…will he not be there when you need him…will he not come to you at all?
Well, not to dump any water on the good Advent practice of personal road
upgrading – after all – why not make it easy for the Lord to reach us – I am
confident that no matter how cluttered or winding the road of our life is,
Jesus will arrive just as he has
promised. After all, what are
sequoias to the one who holds the power of the universe in his hands? And what are boulders to the one who
shattered death and rolled the Easter tomb’s boulder aside? What are winding and narrow roads to
the one who walked the path to the cross to die for our sins? I am confident that Jesus, who arrived
amid the doubts and fears of shepherds, who has called himself the Good
Shepherd who will lay down his life for his sheep, and who even the heavens
will not be able to hold back at the end of time….I am confident that this
Jesus will certainly arrive, as he has promised, in our lives….no matter the
clutter or winding road.
So, this Advent, go ahead and roll out the red carpet for Jesus, after all he is the King of kings and
the Lord of lords….but if your life is so impoverished that you don’t have a
red carpet, or if it so winding that no carpet would ever cover such a
road…fear not, for God has shown that you are so treasured by him that no
matter what your road may look like….Jesus will arrive…just as he did, just as he
does, and just as he will!
God’s grace and peace,
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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