Back in 1997, not long after Kurt and I got married, we made a trip to Texas, my home. It was Kurt’s first trip to West Texas. His third trip West of the Mississippi River. We went to DeLeon, (don’t say it French, it’s DEE LEON) TX, population 2,433, also the smallest town Kurt says he has ever spent a night in (it’s 1/10 of the size of the prior champion in that category). He is a Big City Boy. But the trip there was the most frightening part. The flight down was not so bad. We flew from Detroit Metro to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. As I recall, that flight was uneventful. We rented a car to make the drive out Interstate 20 to my dad’s home town, where my grandparents had been living for more than seventy years. Kurt was driving and I was navigating. I grew up in West Texas. I know I-20 like an Ohioan knows the Ohio Turnpike. It all came back to me. This was my highway. I told him to slow down at Ranger hill, because it’s a speed trap. We laughed about the Dairy Queens at every exit.
But to Kurt, this was unfamiliar territory. It was a dark, cold, rainy night. Texas was foreign soil to him. He was going to some tiny town, to meet my relatives, because my grandfather had died. He was feeling protective of his new wife and he just wanted to reach our destination. When we got to the exit for DeLeon, we turned off the Interstate and headed south, and I kid you not, the little state highway turned to dirt road. It started raining harder, and Kurt thought he had gone to the ends of the earth. “Are all the state highways in Texas dirt roads?” he asked me. It was as if he thought we were in some sort of horror movie, or gone to Hell. Remember, he’s a city boy. He had no idea where we were. He tried not to show it. But he had all these disaster scenarios playing in his head, because everything was out of his control. He was in the wilderness of small rural West Texas.
Well of course, we got there, just fine. We got to my grandparents’ house. My aunt and uncle were there waiting for us. We had something to eat and got a warm bed to sleep in. I reminisced about all the fun summer vacations I had in that house, visiting my grandparents, and the Christmases there with family. This was the house my dad grew up in. The next day we went to the United Methodist Church where my grandmother had played the organ and my granddad was the song leader every Sunday night. I showed Kurt the pulpit where my dad preached his first sermon, and where I preached one of my first sermons. That was cool. This was home for me.
Kurt relaxed and we had a good visit. You see, DeLeon was a home with family and with God for me. But it was wilderness for Kurt. It’s all a matter of perspective. He had never been there. He had never been there, it was far outside his familiar turf, and the road there was scary for him – literally! So he had to go there with someone he loved, and he had to have a tour of a new place, and be told, that it had good people, and that God lived there too.
Well, this is my simple story, to help us to today’s Bible story Isaiah. You see, if you are not a Biblical scholar, then the text that was read for us today, might be pretty unfamiliar to you. It’s poetry, written by a prophet, from another time and place. It takes some translating to make sense to us. But it’s a beautiful piece of writing and it speaks to us today, once we unpack it.
This is the context. The people of Israel, who are God’s chosen people, have been defeated in a war. They have been taken from their country to a far off land and they are living in exile in Babylon. The prophet Isaiah is giving words of hope, because they are living in what is the wilderness to them. Listen to some of the words from Isaiah 40 again in this context:
Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. 2Speak 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.
3A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. 4Every 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. 5Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 6A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. 7The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. 8The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.
9Get 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!” 10See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. 11He 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.
You see there is a promise that God stands forever. And that a highway will be made across that desert that will lead them out of exile in Babylon and back home to Israel. Anyone been lost in the wilderness lately? Anyone felt a little down, a little cut off from God’s love? Feel like you are not going to get back on that highway back home?
Highways were important in Israel. They are important to us now, but we take them for granted because they are usually so readily available. (Except for that night in West Texas, when by the way, the state highway turned to dirt because it was under construction.) Highways in Israel, back in the days that this text was written, were important trade routes between the East and the West. One particular road, The King’s Highway, connected modern Damascus to Cairo, and put Israel on the map for trading. It was a really important highway.
These people wanted a highway back home. They wanted a highway back to God, because they were feeling abandoned by God. I wanted a highway back home to my family because I had lost my grandfather. They were lost. They had lost everything: their land, their homes, their culture, and their centers of religious practice. They thought that God had forgotten them. Many of you have told me you have felt like God has forgotten you. The prophet Isaiah comes to remind them: God has not forgotten you. God is coming back for you. God will care for you like a shepherd cares for his flock.
We read these texts during Advent, because they point to Jesus. In fact, over in the New Testament, when John the Baptist is getting the people ready for Jesus, he quotes this passage from Isaiah 40 and he says that he, John, is preparing a way for Jesus.
You see, scripture is full of God’s promises to God’s people. When we go through any of these wilderness times, and we will go through wilderness times, God reminds us that others have been there too. But God will make a highway, so that we can find our way back to God.
When I went back to DeLeon, Texas, it was a sad time because my grandfather had died, but it was also a good time, because I connected with my family roots. My grandparents and their son, my father, loved God, and raised me to love God, and I am a pastor today, because of them. That little church in that tiny little town of 2,433 produced several pastors that went on to reach many more people in many more places. People like Kurt, who is a city boy and will never live in a town that small, are still touched by the legacy of the people in that little United Methodist Church. Going to that town was going to the wilderness for Kurt but it was going home to connect with God for me.
Which kind of place are you in today? Are you in a wilderness time in your life? Are you looking for a highway to connect God to your life? Or are you feeling cozy and warm and right at home with God? We need some people who are at that place on the journey. Or are you somewhere in between? Wherever you are, remember that the promises of God are for you. “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever” (Is. 40:8)
Today, we are going to celebrate the promises of God in the lives of some more people. We are going to receive some new members into the community of The Village. We are going to baptize one. And then we are going to have the opportunity for all of us to remember our baptism. It’s a good way to take a step out of that wilderness if you are feeling you have been there, and take a step toward God. Because, you see, God is always ready to reconnect with us. That is a promise. God wants to be in relationship with us. Whether it’s a dirt road, or a super highway, God always wants to receive us.
We are going to be claiming one person today as God’s and we are going to give us all a chance to remember our baptisms. If you are feeling alone in the wilderness, remember that God is there with you. God never truly leaves us and God will be there if we need God.
If you need a place to remind you, that you are not alone in the wilderness, come join us at the Village. We’re at the cross roads of Central & Monroe in Toledo on Sundays and coming Spring 2012 to the corner of the Anthony Wayne Trail and Conant Street in Maumee.
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