The Highway of Holiness

Every weekday morning, Susan and I pull out of the parsonage driveway about 6:30. We are headed to the YMCA for our daily insult to old age. Now, if anyone had a reason to be grumpy or be a little impatient, I would think it would be a recently-turned-septuagenarian but now fast-approaching-octogenarian and his beautiful wife. Nope.

The grouchy and intolerant are the people cutting you off while going ten and 15 over the limit on Julian Road. That’s after they’ve been on your bumper for blocks. You’ve got to cut some of them a break though. They are obviously late for an appointment with POTUS or the Pope.

Clearly, some of them are rushing their kids to Koontz Elementary. They’ve blown past me on Julian, make a right on Summit Park, and once they turn left on Ritchie, I figure they’re late for coffee with Jimmy and Mary Lee or they’ve got a youngin’ to drop off. It’s always a drop-off. At least the kids are receiving a primer on getting ahead in life on their way to grade school.

Some of these driving skills are on display all because they just have to get on I85 to Charlotte before some imaginary stock car driver can get ahead of them.

Or maybe they’re aggravated because they are on the wrong road altogether. Maybe they don’t know how to get where they’re going and now they are so far behind that they are frantic. Or maybe they don’t know where they’re headed at all. That would be upsetting.

After all, being on the wrong road in life can have disastrous consequences. But what is the right road, how does one get on it, and how do you stay on it? Isaiah has something to say about that, and so do I. But first, let’s pray.

Help us to be patient until your coming again, Lord. Establish our hearts for we know the time is near, nearer than when we first believed. Inspire us to not place our trust in people, but instead, in you alone. Show us the way...when to set out, like the ancient Hebrews following the pillar of smoke and fire, and when to stop and make camp because you are no longer moving. Give us patience in the camp when we see others seemingly passing us by. Help us wait on your move, then direct our steps so that we follow so closely behind you that we are already in the right place when you return. Amen

Oh, what fools sinners are. And being poor sinners, we are such fools. Yet even foolish sinners will never go astray if they walk in the Way of Holiness. Where is this this High Way? How do we find it? Is it a road built by kings or princes, nations or peoples? Or is it the roadway of he who watches over all sojourning sinners? Or consider this, that God himself the Way of Holiness. Jesus said he is the way (John 14:6).

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

So, let us look to the Lord himself, not to a way of life or of living pious and moral Lutheran lives—like that alone is going to get us anywhere. We must move beyond a bogus holiness that lords its morals over others. Ours must be a genuine Christlikeness which is the result of an experience of cleansing like Isaiah mentions. In fact, this High Way is the life of faith that begins at baptism and remembers that baptism—depends upon it—until death.

Still, because the Lord is coming, we must be patient—with others and with ourselves. We should ground our hearts in God’s word, strengthening our faith by trusting in the Lord. For he is coming for poor, foolish sinners such as ourselves. And we are foolish, at least by the world’s standards, because we do not follow the course of this world. We do not travel the same road or at the same speed. We are not passing up others, but pausing to help them along the way. For we walk on the highway of Holiness, the High Way that is the cross, the gospel, Jesus Christ himself.

Isaiah tells us in verse four of today’s First Lesson that God is coming with vengeance. Now this may be either bad or good news. It depends upon whose side you are on. If you are on God’s side, all is well. Terrible though his coming be, God comes to save you. Though God's wrath is to be feared, he is also to be trusted for his steadfast love of the redeemed. So, we may comfort our own hearts in this season of anticipation. And we may comfort our neighbor who may have a worry about God’s wrath.

If one does not stand with God, however, Isaiah’s decree is one of uncertainty and terror.

Therefore, the task at hand is to endure, to stand, to make ready for Christ’s coming. Advent is the time to get those knees firm and strengthen your hands.

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have an anxious heart, “Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you.” (Isaiah 35:3–4)

If you stand with God, there is no need for fear like the world fears, like the unbelieving fear, like the uncertain fear. We need not fear being behind the rest or being lost or on the wrong road of life. There is a way through this wilderness, and if you are a follower of Jesus, you are on that road, the right road. The holy High Way of God is the road traveled by the redeemed since the time of Abraham. We travel God’s Way in faith that he leads us by his word. This is what we remember in Advent: that God has made a way. Indeed, he is the Way.

Who can you trust while traveling this highway? The psalmist tells us that there is a King we may trust, but to not put our trust in earthly leaders, whose lives will end and their political promises and plans along with them. Probably somewhere around the I77 turn turnout in Charlotte.

But we should be able to trust those “fools” on the Way with us.

Isaiah 35:8 ESV

And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.

The ungodly or non-Christian will not be found on the High Way of Holiness—unlike, evidently, Julian Road. The road we travel is the way of faith, the way of the gospel, the way who is himself the Way.

This does not mean that there are none but upright folks in churches. Many try to infiltrate the church but it does not belong to them. Luther said,

Luther’s Works, Volume 16 Chapter Thirty-Five

They are among us, but they are not of us. They are the excrement and spittle of the body, not members of the body, the church.

Walk with those who have faith in Christ, not with those who make pompous pronouncements of their rightness over others’ wrongs.

Titus 1:16 ESV

They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

Walk with them at your own peril. Follow the way of faith instead. The end of the Holy Way is Zion, the Holy City, the New Jerusalem. It is the way to God’s full and final redemption. It is the way to the avenging God himself and thus, to perfect, eternal life.

But when will the King return and execute his vengeance? We observe Advent and celebrate Christmas year after year, but the poor are still poor and the afflicted still die and there is yet to be peace on earth.

The word of the Apostle is difficult: “Be patient.” Somehow there is blessedness in such endurance. This does not differ from the words of the Lord himself in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are you when ...” everything seems to be going wrong. (Matthew 5:1-11).

Having patience in trying times is more bearable when we remember why we are blessed. It is not only because we may expect the great reward of heaven (Matthew 5:12)—“Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”—but because Jesus also endured. Therefore he understands our weakness and stands with us (Hebrews 4:15) “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

We are blessed as we patiently wait, because Jesus is with us, seemingly more closely when we are patiently enduring than when we are not.

But it is easy enough, I suppose, to become discouraged. Even John the “Lutheran” grew disheartened. His faith wavered. “Are you really the awaited Messiah or should we look elsewhere?” Jesus reminded him and reminds us today that what was foretold had come to pass. The good news is true. Yet, sitting in Herod’s cell, John may have been looking for the wrong kind of Christ. If he expected him to look like Herod or any other king, he would have been wrong. If he expected him to act like Herod or other kings, he would be equally wrong.

John expected and preached fairly immediate results. Though the poor were given good news and people were healed, the oppression of God’s people continued. John himself sat in prison for preaching this very good news. It is hard to be patient for results when you’re in a prison cell. Even more especially, if what you expected has not turned out to be as expected.

Jesus may not look like what we expected either. His rule may not be unfolding our way or at our desired pace. Yet, blessed is the one who is not offended by him. One day, it will be clear why God does things in his way and not ours.

Until then, we must patiently await his coming, keeping to the High Way of the cross, the gospel, the Way who is Christ himself.