What! More Road Construction?                           Isaiah 40:1-11

                                                                                                                                                                 Mark 1:1-8

 7 December, 2008 -- The Second Sunday of Advent

Comfort, comfort my people says your God.

Perhaps the most beautiful words of Advent.

 God's people waiting in exile, 700 years before Christ's coming…

 God's people still waiting in exile, 2000 years after his coming…

 "Comfort, comfort my people," says your God. "Make straight a highway for when he comes."

 What? More road construction?

 Haven't we had our fill of "road work" already?

 Haven't we been inconvenienced enough for one spring, summer, and fall?

 The prophet's words are poetic and lovely and tug at the old heart strings. But, give us a break!  Isn't it high time that the construction is completed

and the roads are finally made wide for us?

                                    * * * * * *

 Did you catch wind of the Christmas story when the Gospel was read this morning?  If you were distracted for even a second, you missed it:

 The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ.

 In Mark's telling of the story, that's all that is required.

 No Bethlehem, no manger. No divine or human visitors to pay homage to him. No virgin birth. No fanfare. No multitude of the heavenly host.

 Just the beginning of the good news – pure and simple.

 Approximately 30 years after the fact, the Baptist appeared in the Holy Land wilderness to announce that the Good News is all grown up, and is about to move into our neighborhood.

 As the story picks up where today's reading leaves off, he appears and is baptized, and is then set loose in all his simplicity and glory to bring change that the people can believe in.

                                    * * * * * *

 Turns out that these times call for the re-enactment of the story as it was related in Mark, the gospel that preceeded the others by decades. No Christmas rush – not this year. Wasn't the super-market stampede in Long Island all the proof we need that "high tech" and all forms of materialism are not the change we can believe in… that drastically-reduced merchandise is still, after all, just merchandise?

 Do not these dark economic times call for a return to the divinely simple?

 Could it at long last be time to take the glamour out of Christmas, and replace it with something more down-to-earth?

 What could that mean to you? To spend less money and more time?

 To spur on the economy not by circulating your dollars but your good will?

 To live the American Dream not by the luxury of high-tech things but through the extravagance of Christ-like things?

 Mark's telling of the Good News is no frills and no nonsense. Jesus simply enters the world and echoes the words of the Prophet of Old to everyone who will listen:

 That judgment has already been rendered and heaven is about to begin…

 To forsake the enticement of the material world for the beauty of the natural world…

 To avail yourself of faith, hope, and love in place of dogma, doctrine, and religion…

Instead of celebrating his birth this time around, to observe the Lord's Advent. Could it be that in constructing the highway for your God you will find yourself observing and celebrating his birth with a joy you never knew before?

 Isn't it high time that the construction is completed and the roads are made wide for him?

 Seek first the things of the reign of God, and all the rest will be added unto you.

 * * * * * * * * *

 When my wife, Julie, and ventured out for a drive the other day, I was utterly amazed to feast my eyes on Lyndale Avenue, new and improved. From the time we moved back to South Minneapolis last June, I've been complaining about road construction. "It's completely messed up my commute and jammed up the traffic flow for everyone."

 "And what's with all these bridges over 35W under repair. God help us!"

 Suddenly I'm singing a happy tune.

 "Look at how nice and wide these boulevards and bridges!

 The marvelous mystery of Advent is that the highway of our God is widened not when we haul in all the heavy, state-of-the-art equipment, (as in the case of road construction), but when we clear the path of all our old merchandise and "stuff" and effectively unclog the way for him.

 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God…

 A voice cries out, "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God…

 Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.