Highway to Heaven

Scripture Isaiah 40:1-11. NRSV   

Comfort, O comfort my people,

    says your God.

2 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.

3 A voice cries out:

“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,

    make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

4 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.

5 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,

    and all people shall see it together,

    for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

6 A voice says, “Cry out!”

    And I said, “What shall I cry?”

All people are grass,

    their constancy is like the flower of the field.

7 The grass withers, the flower fades,

    when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;

    surely the people are grass.

8 The grass withers, the flower fades;

    but the word of our God will stand forever.

9 Get you up to a high mountain,

    O Zion, herald of good tidings;

lift up your voice with strength,

    O Jerusalem, herald of good tidings,

    lift it up, do not fear;

say to the cities of Judah,

    “Here is your God!”

10 See, the Lord God comes with might,

    and his arm rules for him;

his reward is with him,

    and his recompense before him.

11 He will feed his flock like a shepherd;

    he will gather the lambs in his arms,

and carry them in his bosom,

    and gently lead the mother sheep.

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Sermon   44. Highway to Heaven.   Peace.  

Good morning.  According to my weather app Sunday is expected to be a beautiful, clear and cool December morning.  We continue to worship online today and that will most likely continue for some weeks to come.  I send out an eBlast on Tuesday afternoons to keep you informed about that, and any other information that might be helpful in between newsletters.  If you think you should be getting emails and are not, please text me or let us know via the website or our Facebook group.  Meanwhile, stay home if you can.  Be careful when you must go out.  And please, wear your mask.  

Today is the 2nd Sunday of Advent - Peace Sunday.   Today we light the 2nd Advent Candle.  Today we hear God tell Isaiah to comfort the people, to let Israel know that her time of trial is at an end. . . that the Messiah will come soon.  We hear God’s voice crying out in the wilderness, telling Isaiah to prepare the way, to bring down the mountains and lift up the valleys so that the way of the Lord will be smooth and easy to travel. Shortly thereafter, of course, God says “Go tell it on the mountain!” which one would think would be hard to do if the mountains and valleys had all become plains?  I don’t quite understand that, but as Miss  Marple once said, “Well, it’s the Bible, dear.  I’m not sure you’re meant to.”. (The Pale Horse, Agatha Christie).   God directed Isaiah to speak to the people, to bring peace into their hearts, to assure them that all would be well.

It is Peace Sunday.  We are anticipating the coming of the Prince of Peace . . . but it is not a peaceful time. We are expecting the Prince of Peace. . . and the world is on fire, with wars and threats of wars and assassinations and many thousands of refugees fleeing ethnic cleansing, and a global pandemic.  Our world is not peaceful, not at all, and we are looking for the Promised One, the one who will bring peace into our hearts and into the world.  And we wonder where on earth that Promised One might be.  Where is the one who will save us, who will lead us out of captivity?  

Marchae Grair is a Spiritual Director and Director of Public Relations and Outreach for the Unitarian Universalist Association.  In the Still Speaking daily meditation on December 3, 2020, she said:

“In our current political climate, I witness people searching for the next change-makers who will save us all. I even find myself reading and scrolling through Facebook trying to identify the next great hero instead of wondering what kind of hero lives in me . . .

 . . .  Some treat Advent as the time we wait for the one who will save us; however, Advent is the time we wait for the one who gives us the blueprint to save ourselves.

And she quoted from a song by India Arie, titled “What if?”

We are the ones we've been waiting for

We can change the world

Our love can change the world”   

Wait, what?  WE are supposed to lead the change?  WE are supposed to be the ones to save the world?

I titled today’s message “Highway to Heaven.”. Quite honestly, originally I was thinking of  “Stairway to Heaven” and singing it to myself, but that’s really more appropriate to the story of Jacob’s ladder than to Isaiah.  Highway to Heaven, however, does fit this scripture pretty well.  You might remember watching the show when it was new, or maybe you like watching 1980s TV online.  If you don’t know the show . . . Michael Landon (of Bonanza and Little House on the Prairie fame) played Jonathan, an angel on probation, trying to earn his wings by traveling around the country helping folks with life challenges and difficult decisions.   He didn’t perform miracles...although I do remember one episode when a person whose very soul was in jeopardy happened to look up to see the cross on top of the church was lit - very much like the cross on top of our church.  But in this case, the power was out in the whole neighborhood, so the cross could not possibly be lit, unless  . . . maybe God did it?  The angel didn’t do it - didn’t have the power to do it, so yeah. God did it.  These are not stories of Jonathan snapping his fingers and miraculously fixing things for people.  What he did was help people find their own way, simply presenting them with possibilities.  Like the time he introduced a young homeless boy to a man whose ex wouldn’t let him see their son . . .and then just let whatever was going to happen, happen.   He didn’t show up to save anyone.  He was sent there to help people find their own way to making the right choices.  He may have helped inspire someone, but they did the work.  They made the decisions and the necessary changes themselves.

In the middle of God’s instructions, Isaiah asks a question. “Cry out?  What shall I cry? People are inconstant.  Their faith, their willingness to do Your will withers like grass, fades like a flower in the field.”  People are inconstant.  Yes.  Yes, we are. It is not easy to stick with it, whatever “it” might be.  We know this.  We find evidence of it every year in about February when people’s intentions to do good things wanes a bit.  New treadmills get dusty.  We start having more cheat days than diet days. We skip our new daily meditation time, just this once.  We grow weary of all the good habits we are trying to develop.  We start out great.  We can do things with enthusiasm  .. for a while.  But as time goes on, our enthusiasm fades.  

God knew this long before Isaiah was born.  We are, after all, God’s creation.  God knows us better than we could ever know ourselves. God’s many centuries of experience with people made it crystal clear. People are inconstant.  Even knowing that we don’t listen well, we don’t follow directions well, we don’t stick with resolutions well, or even keep our own promises well, God still offers another chance. Just as the judges were sent to rescue Israel and defeat whatever enemy threatened them from generation to generation, so too would another come to deliver the people of Judah out of the hands of Babylon and return them back to Jerusalem.  And so it happened.  Cyrus the Great defeated Babylon and freed the people of Judah, even helped them to rebuild the Temple. 

Time went by and oops! It happened again.  Judah fell to another oppressor.  But this time they didn’t so much “do what was evil in the sight of God” as they had all those other times - worshipping other gods and whatnot. They simply stopped doing the important things.  They stopped caring for those who had no one else to care for them - the poor, widows, orphans, alien residents in their land.  Strict adherence to laws became more important than healing the sick or helping the injured person at the side of the road.  Justice became a matter of who could bribe the judges best, or pay off the loudest mob.  The leadership considered it best, more politically expedient, to just try to get along with the Romans than to stand up for their over taxed, over burdened citizens.  They lived under the Pax Romana - but not under the Peace of God.  Many looked back to the Prophets of old, seeking hope in the words of Isaiah and others that God would once again send a Savior to rescue them. 

And as we know, God did send another.  This time victory would not come at the point of spears and swords.  This time the Promised One was sent to save Israel, not from an outside oppressor, but from herself. This time she would be saved from the grip of self-centered sin. This time God would send someone to change their hearts for all time, someone whose influence would last longer than a generation, someone who looked nothing like the generals and princes who had been sent in the past.  This time God would send the Prince of Peace.  And instead of riding at the head of a mighty army, this Messiah would walk the land, speaking truth to power and to those with no power.  

This Messiah would change the world, one person at a time, one heart at a time.  

This time Peace would be an inside job, with each follower, each believer walking alongside the Christ through all the mountains and valleys of life’s highway.  

Know this,  

We can more easily discern the will of God when we are not fussing and struggling against our present reality.  

Faith in God and hope for the future are the tools that level the mountains and raise up the valleys and make the highway straight.

When we have peace in our hearts, when we stop fighting our present reality, 

when we accept that just for this moment we are right where we are supposed to be.

then we can rest in the arms of our God, like a lamb in the arms of her shepherd, 

knowing that God will lead us in the right direction, 

that Christ’s peace will lead us to make the right decisions.

The Prince of Peace is coming, not to change the world all by himself, 

but to bring peace into our hearts so that we can.   

Let us open our hearts to welcome him.