Writings: A Highway In Our Desert

By: Dr. Gregory S. Neal

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Isaiah 40:3)

About seven years ago I made a preaching, teaching, and cultural exchange trip to Poland; while there I visited with several Methodist, Anglican, Lutheran, Catholic, and Mennonite friends, learning about their ministries and enjoying the visual and spiritual wealth of that beautiful country. I’d just been in Krakow, where I had preached and presided at Communion, when my friends Jarak and Lukasz took me farther south, across the border into Slovakia. While in Slovakia we visited the abandoned monastery of Červený Kláštor, which had long-ago been converted into a cultural museum; although abandoned for religious services, the buildings still retained a deep, spiritual, heart-stirring vibe that resonated with my own experience in monastic life. Wandering the grounds of the monastery, sitting in the chapel, walking through its cloister, exploring the monastic cells and the common rooms, one could almost hear the centuries of prayer that once echoed throughout those buildings. Deserted, in the middle of nowhere, amidst the forest and mountains of northern Slovakia, one wouldn’t expect to find a “highway.” And yet, that’s what that monastery had once been: “a highway for our God,” through which Christ had touched the lives of untold thousands of people across centuries of time.

Červený Kláštor is now deserted. It stands empty, devoid of human habitation or religious devotion, and while people may visit, eager to see and feel what had once resonated within, nevertheless its halls are all quiet now ... quiet and bitterly cold, much like our world these days: empty of hope, lost in darkness, crying out for God in the echoing cold of deserted chapels. The good news of the Gospel is that God doesn’t leave us in this gloomy place.

On the first Sunday of Advent, we explored the Hope that we have for the coming of God into our midst: God, who doesn’t leave us in our own self-made emptiness; God, who doesn’t leave us in shattered pieces on the floor; God, who is our eternal potter. We are like lumps of clay on the potter’s wheel, and as the potter spins the wheel and fashions the lumps into amazing ceramic vessels, so also God – our eternal Potter – wants to fashion us into an amazing vessel for the Good News of God’s love.

This week we hear about the Way of Faith. Christ is our Way of Faith, the Highway for our God that we are invited to travel. By faith we travel from a deserted place, through a deserted place, toward the place that God has for us in Jesus.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” (Isaiah 40:3)

The truth of the Gospel is that, while we may be in a wilderness – in a cold, dead desert – we are not alone. God has come into our midst, and we hear in the voice of the prophet Isaiah the echoing cry: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD.”

We usually don’t expect to encounter God in deserted wildernesses. We seem to think that God belongs in temples, in churches, in the Holy of Holies, not out here in the wilderness, where we are; not in some cold, empty museum-monastery in the middle of nowhere; not in the empty, hopeless hearts of those who are lost in darkness. And yet, that’s the cry of the prophet, the expectation of the believer, and the Hope of the world: into the midst of the cold and darkness comes the light of God through voice of the prophet. And what does the prophet cry?

“Prepare the way of the LORD. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

The way to that monastery twisted around a lot. It was a bumpy road, with long shadows, old bridges, winding turns, and lonely stretches. In one place a large flock of sheep had wandered across the road, going from one field to another, causing us to stop; in other places the trees pressed in so thickly that the shadows made it feel like night. We traveled from open fields into the thick forest, down through valleys and up into craggy hills, around sharp bends again and again, into the middle of nowhere to find that monastery. That’s the kind of out-of-the-way, hard-to-get-to places that are being spoken of here. And it’s not just places that can be that way: it’s people’s hearts and souls that can be difficult to penetrate; it’s the darkness of depression that can trap people, especially this time of year, and make them feel lost and hopeless. It’s the gloom in us that God’s message is going to pierce with glorious rays of Hope.

“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.” (Isaiah 40:4)

Things are going to change; they’re not going to be the way they’ve always been! Even though the valleys are deep and the mountains foreboding, the atmosphere oppressive and the road long and difficult, God is going to change all that! The valleys that stop us are going to be filled in, the mountains that block our way are going to be brought down to size, and the road is going to be smoothed over. We may think that the obstacles are beyond our management – and they are, if it’s all up to us – but it’s not just up to us! God is about to do an amazing thing:

“Then the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 40:5)

Things are about to change! That’s one of the most important messages of Advent: life has become cold, dark, and empty, and our souls have become like a desert, aching for the presence of God, for the hands of the potter to come and remold us, but all that is about to change. The aching is almost over, the hands of the potter are about to touch us even as we’re still spinning, because God’s act of molding is here:

A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” (Isaiah 40:6)

The cry is not just any old wail, lament, complaint, or moan. We’re supposed to cry out something specific. Let’s see what the prophet is told to cry out:

“All people are grass, their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the LORD blows upon it; surely the people are grass.” (Isaiah 40:6b-7)

The other day I was looking for some lettuce to make a salad at dinner; I thought that I had just ordered some for home delivery a few days earlier, so I opened the crisper drawer in my refrigerator to look. Sure enough, I found a bag of salad ... but it must have been ordered more than just a few days before, because it had gone all mushy, brown, and watery-icky. That’s us: rotting, unused and unusable.

“The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)

Yes, we’re like the bag of salad from the grocery store that sat in the fridge a little too long. We wither and fade, but God’s Word – and, fundamentally, God’s Word is Jesus – God’s Word will stand forever. In Christ we have our hope. In Christ we have our way. In Christ we have the one who cuts through our mushiness, our wiltedness, our deserted souls and wind-swept, empty chapels, bringing the good news of God’s love and presence. Christ is about to change everything, opening a highway for our God, piercing the shadowed wilderness of our souls. Thanks be to God!

© 2020, Dr. Gregory S. Neal
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