We
have all seen the “Holiday Movie.” You know the one, where someone is trying to
get home for Christmas. Maybe there are obstacles in the way, maybe they are at
home but they have to go through a series of events to find where home really
is. Movies at this time of year focus on families coming together, finding one
another, learning to love one another to find the “true meaning of Christmas.”
Through the general parade of Christmas movies we learn that coming together
and finding love amongst your family and friends is what really matters at this
time of year; that “home” is where we find the true meaning of Christmas. I
think I can hear your eyes roles and see your internal moans from here.
So
there is this idea that “true meaning of Christmas “is about homegoing or finding home, returning to the
place where you belong, where love and security are found. This is actually very
much a Biblical theme for this time of year. As sappy, as bland and as secular
as some of these Christmas movies can be, they have actually somehow managed to
stumble upon some amount of truth when it comes important things to think about
at this time of year.
This
passage is all about going home. The entire time Israel is in exile they are
longing to go home; to live in the house and the cities in which their
ancestors lived, to be near the friends and family they left behind, to be
reunited with loved ones from whom they had been separated since the time of
the exile. The idea of going home and being reunited with loved ones, finding
safety, security, love and belonging in a beloved place. THIS is what passages
like this one are about.
This
is about the road home. Finding your way back to where you belong, to the place
that is home, to the people that is home. But, it is more than that. In all the
movies finding the place, the people, and the relationship that are “home” is
always a struggle. The main characters have to go through a series of
hardships, they have to work through several problems, or find their way to the
other side of some kind of struggle to find “home.” The movies elevate the
struggle, the hardships along the way, because where you end up is what
matters. Finally finding your way home makes anything endured on the way there
worth the hurt, the pain, and the struggle experienced along the way. But, this
passage is not about the journey taken, the struggle overcome, the hardships
endured, the pain experienced, problems solved that finally bring you home.
This
passage is about going home. But it is not about the huge hot dessert one must
cross to get there. It is not about the perilous wilderness one must go
through. It not about the mountain one must scale, or the dangers, which come
at you from all sides. It is not about getting lost along the way, learning an
important lesson and then finally finding your way home. This is about going
home, finding home, being in the place you were meant to be.
And
how did you get there? Surely, the road one must traverse goes over the highest
mountain, through the darkest valley, and the driest dessert, with steep cliff
on one side with sharp pointy rocks at the bottom and another on the other that
periodically throws immense boulder down at you. You mustgo through the
forbidden forest, which houses the most notorious bandits and all the lions and
tigers and bears. What kind of journey would it be without the dangerous road
along which we all must travel to find our way home again? But, that is not the
kind of story portrayed in this passage, there is no danger there is no puzzle,
there is no unending peril. You just go home. You travel there along a wide
smooth road, which passes through a dessert, which is a garden full of food;
through a wilderness, which is filled with refreshing pools of water; down a
road surrounded by fragrant blossoms, along a highway that does not twist or
turn, through a land completely void of danger. There are no bandits to defeat,
no wild animals to avoid. There is no danger of going hungry or thirsty or being
killed by anything that would wish you harm. In fact, the path is so clear, the
road so smooth and so straight that even a fool could not manage to seek out a
way to get lost along it. This is a highway, wide, and straight, smooth and safe,
which takes you all the way home; straight there with no detours, no danger, and
no dashing deeds of heroism needed to earn your way there.
Not
only is it a place of safety and security, but it is a place of healing and
restoration. The blind, see; the deaf, hear; the lame walk, feeble hands are made
strong, wobbly needs are made steady. This is a place of justice and vengeance,
where wrongs are set right. Those who have caused others pain, who have done
harm, those who have crushed the weak and taken advantage of others, will pay. And
those to whom injustice has been dealt, will receive what they have lost, what
was taken will be restored; they will receive all that was denied to them.
There
is a story where the road home sounds like singing and smells like flowers, where
there is rejoicing all along the way. This passage is full of freedom, full of
safety, full of longing fulfilled, and full of joy. Joy because home has been
found; joy because the lame leap and the mute sing; joy because restoration,
reconciliation, redemption have been found, joy because brokenness has been
mended and wholeness has been restored.
This
is a healing road, one that heals bodies, minds and relationship. It brings
restoration to our whole beings and puts us right with our creator. All on this
road are righteous, are made clean, only those who are redeemed, who are living
in right relationship with God can be found there. This is the road that
restores all things, that ultimately sets everything right.
Israel
was looking for a way home, way back to the land they loved, a way back to Israel,
to Jerusalem. They wanted to go home and so God promises them a road home. God
promises them a road like no other road; a holy highway, which encompasses a
journey of Joy and leads them right to where they have always longed to be. But
the road God promises is bigger than they could imagine, the way there is more amazing
than they could dream and the place to which it will take them is nearly incomprehensible.
The home to which this road leads, is bigger than Israel, bigger than
Jerusalem, bigger than the temple, bigger than the land, this road leads to the
holy of holies. It leads to place where we all live in right relationship with
God. This is the Holy Highway, the road that leads to the heart of God.
This
road IS Jesus Christ. All those found upon it are redeemed. In this passage the
road is the way home. And as we look back and see this promise through the lens
of the life, death, resurrection and promised return of Christ, when we
understand who Christ is and what life lived as Christ calls us to live means,
we cannot help but see that this road is not a thing, it not a path, it no mere
highway, it IS Jesus Christ. He is the way. And the land to which the road
takes us, the home to which we are going, is relationship with the one and only
God of the universe. Advent is about finding home, it is about finding that
relationships are what really matter, but not the relationship found around a
fire, under a Christmas tree, around a cup of comforting cider, but the
relationship we find in Jesus Christ, the relationship restored that we find
when we are right with God. When that one relationship is made right, when we
find ourselves walking along the highway that is belief in Jesus Christ and a
life lived in the love of God, then we find that we are able to work out
restoration, reconciliation, in the other relationships in our lives. Home is
found in God, in Jesus Christ and when we find home in the creator of the
universe, we are finally able to begin to find home in all the other areas of
our life. When we walk along the road that is Jesus Christ, that is where
reconciliation, restoration, redemption is found. When we travel along the highway
that leads to the heart of God, we find wholeness and healing, it is in
relationship with God that wrong are set right. In living our lives heading
toward home we are able to be the people of God rejoicing together, we find
that the journey we take is one filled with Joy that can only be found when we finally
find where home is, who home is.
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