Life is a Highway
The county that I once called home has an interstate highway barreling through the heart of its suburban neighborhoods, a four-lane ribbon of concrete that is now known for its constant traffic congestion, crumbling asphalt and outdated design plans 40-years behind the times.
But it wasn’t always so. In my final years of high school, this “Blue Route” -- as we locals call it -- was as close as one could get to an urban paradise. Not yet open to vehicular traffic, the entire roadway from Conshohocken to Chester became a virtual outdoor walking-biking-and-rollerblading trail. Runners and joggers, parents pushing babies in strollers, and bored teens looking for some local adventure made their way to the unused, pristine interstate. A classmate of mine even had his first date walking the Blue Route. (Romantic, huh?)
Once the highway opened to vehicular traffic, though, things started to change. Even though we were grateful for the convenience it offered, the roadway itself started to get messy rather quickly: assorted car parts scattered on the median; vegetation along the shoulders turning brown and dying; potholes every couple of miles; and the trash – oh, the trash. Within the first ten years of use, it was almost as if the state department of transportation never showed up anymore. What once was beautiful became blighted and dangerous.
How can such a beautiful roadway fall into disrepair so quickly, without our even noticing?
This very question lies at the heart of today’s Gospel and is, in fact, the theme of Advent: what’s your highway look like these days?
Wild-haired, locust-eating, desert-living John the Baptist comes out of the wilderness to cry out with all his heart, just as the prophet Isaiah did long ago: “Prepare the way … make straight the highway of the Lord.”
It was a practice in the days of old that when the king was coming to visit one of his outlying villages, the locals would be tasked with making sure that the roadway leading to their homes was as smooth as it possibly could be: potholes filled in; everything made level and smooth. The king, after all, deserved an entrance to the town that was worthy of his coming. And if the road was messy, the villagers would miss the king’s arrival: he would pass them by or simply turn around and head back toward home. He might even punish them severely for not having a pathway worthy of his travel. No expense was spared to make a highway worthy of the king.
So when the Baptist cries out to all of Jerusalem and Judea (and ultimately to the world): “Prepare the way of the Lord,” what he was actually calling for was a radical change of life – one in which the potholes of sin were filled in and the divots in our hearts caused by hatred and selfishness, jealousy and fear, were once again made smooth for the King when He comes.
How does John suggest we do this? One word: Repent.
There is so much wrapped-up in that one word – a word that means more than feeling guilty for bad things we’ve done. “Repent” is an action verb: one that demands we do whatever it takes to respond to the King’s coming and make straight the highways that lead to our souls. Do you want the King to come to you? Do you want to encounter the Kingdom of heaven both here and now and for all eternity? Do you long for an authentic relationship with Christ our Lord? Then the answer is clear: Repent – and start letting the Savior’s mercy fill in the potholes of your life.
We all have them, and it is to this reality that Paul speaks in his letter to the Romans: by endurance and encouragement, have hope. In other words, don’t get discouraged by the potholes. It is for those very bumps in the road that Christ came to rescue us -- the Triple A on life’s messy highway. He doesn’t want us to live in shame, spending our lives just looking in disgust at the trash along the shoulders of our highway. Rather, he wants us to act – to live the word “repent” – and to respond to the grace that comes from His Cross and from the Sacraments.
Repent – act now – by returning to the sacrament of Reconciliation. Lay before Him your potholes, and let Him fill them in with healing love and mercy.
Repent – act now – by making amends with those whom you have hurt, and forgive those who have hurt you. Refusing to forgive gives us less power and peace than it does when we willingly strive to live and love in a world prophesied by Isaiah at the coming of Christ: a world of peace where the wolf and lamb, the lion and the calf, and the child and the adder find the way to heal and grow together. It can only come through the mercy of His Cross.
Repent – act now – by walking the walk of the Christian who is so in love with Jesus Christ that one can’t help but share His Love with others. The entire reason why John the Baptist was so upset with the religious leaders of his day was because they were never willing to “walk the walk” of true discipleship. These Pharisees could enforce the rules of their religion and were quite adept at talking the talk, but they forgot the driving force behind all that the Lord asked of us as His children: do all that you do in a spirit of authentic and holy love that comes when hearts are made pure and the potholes of sin and hate repaired.
John cries out, as does the Church in Advent: Please don’t limit the healing mercy of Christ. The One who can raise up children to Abraham from stones and the one who baptizes us with the fire of His Spirit wants nothing more than to heal, repair and make smooth the paths that lead to hearts and lives that have been hurt and broken. Imagine living a life in which the potholes of our hearts filled in by Jesus Christ become the very highway upon which others find the very same healing and grace and mercy we found by coming to Him, by repenting. Living this way makes the Kingdom present here and now, and adds light and hope to the Kingdom highway we all must traverse.
Admittedly, I don’t travel the Blue Route as often as I once did, but on a recent drive north, I passed a spot on the interstate where a college student was murdered nearly 30 years ago by a stranger on her way back from college on break. It was heartbreaking, shocking news for an entire community where nothing of consequence ever seems to happen. For the past thirty years since that act of evil occurred, someone returns almost weekly to the spot on the off-ramp to care for the area where Amy took her final breath, removing trash and planting sunflowers, her favorite flower. A little handmade sign covered in plastic addressed the tragedy in these words: “Amy, in your memory, we choose love always. Hate and darkness will not triumph.”
In his or her own little way, this unknown person is choosing to fill-in the potholes and make straight the highway, even if it’s only one tiny corner of I-476. Right here, the Kingdom of Heaven is breaking through. How will it happen for us this week?