Advent Adventure

Wilderness Wandering 

Isaiah 40:1-5  Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” 

I can remember as a lad of of 12 catching the Royal Blue Coach from Plymouth’s Bretonside Bus Station with 3 other friends as we made our way to Sunbury Court for an Annual weeks school of music. We departed at 10 pm on the Friday and didn’t arrive at Staines on the outskirts of London until 5:30 the next morning. Seven and a half hours passing through numerous towns and villages on what seemed to us youngsters as a torturous journey. Just nine years later on going to college adjacent to Kings College and Maudsley Hospitals in Camberwell, the same journey was much easier due to 2 new motorways, the M4 and M5; at least as far as London to Taunton.

Today, we take those thoroughfares for granted, but have you considered the obstacles that needed to be dealt with in order for those highways to be built. Whilst not exactly desert places, a great deal of preparation was required to complete the work.

The role of a Christian in the advent journey is twofold; to be a pilgrim of faith as well as part of the construction team, making inroads into fellow traveller’s lives so that they too may access the Way of the Lord. Fellow Pilgrim Henry Drummond looked at such journeying in this way; “I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer it or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.”

A prayer of Richard Baxter (17th century}

Protect us, O Lord, during this our earthly pilgrimage that we may seek you diligently, walk with you lovingly and serve you faithfully; and, having been ready to do your will in the world, may we be eager to meet you in the glory.  through Christ our Lord. Amen