The King's Highway

Over thirty percent of the bridges in this country are classified as needing major structural repairs. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re taking your life in your hands the minute you start to cross a bridge, but it does mean that, as a whole, our transportation system is wearing out. Some of it is because there’s more traffic, but not a lot. Mostly it’s because we haven’t invested in maintenance. Millions of dollars were spent to build the famous bridges of New York, St. Louis, Seattle, San Francisco. Billions more dollars were spent building our interstate transportation system back in the 50’s. We transformed the landscape, do you realize? to accommodate the internal combustion engine. It was exciting, an adventure, in a way, flexing our technological and economic muscle, spanning the rivers and conquering the vast open spaces and bringing our national wonders within the everyday reach of ordinary people.

It was new. It was exciting. It was a blue-ribbon performance.

And then we started taking our roads and bridges for granted.

And then we started skimping on the upkeep, diverting resources to sexier programs, projects with more publicity value, causes with a more modern, up-to-date ring. Road repairs don’t capture the public’s attention. “Build bridges to the future” captures headlines; “rebuild the bridges of the past” does not.

The internal combustion engine - our automobiles and minivans and recreational vehicles and pickup trucks - are more important than ever. We scurry around in our fast, fun, shiny machines, sometimes impatient, sometimes oblivious, but rarely wondering if the structures we rely on are crumbling away beneath our feet. Who remembers a time when it wasn’t even there? Whoever thinks, nowadays, about how we changed the world - to fit our cars?

The word of God came to John bar Zechariah and he went up from the desert into Judea, preaching repentance.... He was, as Isaiah the prophet said “the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”

Once upon a time the news that God had become man and lived with us and died for us was new. Once upon a time the news turned whole societies upside down. Once upon a time the idea that we owed Jesus Christ our lives created in us a sense of excitement, of adventure, of commitment. But now, I think, especially in our comfortable, sophisticated Western world, we take a lot of the gifts Jesus brought us for granted.

So now we prepare our hearts and our homes for the coming of the Christ child. We put up displays in our front yards, we send out Christmas cards, we decorate our trees and bake gingerbread and wrap presents and sing Christmas carols and you name it. Some years ago a satirist named Tom Lehrer wrote a song about Christmas:

“Christmas time is here, by golly,

disapproval would be folly.

Deck the halls with hunks of holly,

fill the cup and don’t say when.

Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,

stuff the goose, drag out the Dickens.

Even though the prospect sickens,

brother, here we go again.”

We scurry around with our shiny toys, sometimes impatient, sometimes frustrated or exhausted, sometimes really making an effort to set aside time to remember what lies beneath all of the activity. But there’s so little time, so much to get done, so many demands and pressures. Maybe later we’ll check the infrastructure. Maybe next year we’ll see if the way in the desert is still visible. Maybe later we’ll check into the potholes on the highway for our God. In the meantime, we’re just praying to make it to the next rest stop.

The people of Jesus’ day - even the Pharisees - longed for the Messiah, too. They searched the scriptures and knew the prophecies. They thought they were ready. But they had forgotten what the prophet Amos had said, “Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light.” [5:18]

The coming of the Lord was something to be feared. The last time the Lord appeared to his people was on Mt. Sinai, and there was thunder and lightning, and all the people in the camp trembled. Moses brought them out of the camp, to the foot of the mountain, to meet with God. The whole mountain shook violently and a sound like a trumpet blast became louder and louder. Moses would speak, and God would answer him with thunder, and God told Moses to warn the people not to come near, else they would perish.” [Ex 19:21]

Micah, too, warned the people of the coming of the Lord: “The Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth, and the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will burst open like wax near a fire, like waters poured down a steep place.” [Mic 1:4]