December 16, 2001
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church of San Francisco.
MUNI drivers will like it. Commuters will hate it. And Gina Pittman of Bellach’s Furniture Store at the corner of California Street and Van Ness said, “It will make access to merchants and restaurants more difficult.”
All the uproar is the result of the City Planning Department wanting to reduce three lanes of traffic on Van Ness Avenue to two lanes each way because SF wants 2 bus lanes down the center of this major north and south artery.
Everyone agrees that the existing situation is a mess. Planning is needed because the state will remove the Central Freeway above Otavia Street in 2003. In its place will be a surface boulevard connecting Fell and Oak Streets. Planners soon decided that the new boulevard would work even better if it came with other changes to unsnarl a section of the city where roadways and transit lines collide in awkward and even dangerous ways.
I’m not sure if I would like this either! When I come off 101 to take Van Ness to Lombard, I want that third lane to quickly get home!
Some of you may not know this but one of the reasons why San Francisco is one of the most beautiful and livable cities in the world is that it has no highways in the middle of the city. After Loma Prieta in 1989, most of the city’s elevated freeways were taken down—not only for safety but also for livability.
So when you try to call me after 4:00, I’m usually on my way home because my parking illegally at our white zone becomes even more illegal because Sacramento Street is an east/west “highway” for commuters and MUNI busses!
Highways are the main routes for you and me to get from one place to another. It’s a thoroughfare freely open to everyone.
God to Do a New Thing
Before the 35th chapter of Isaiah, Jerusalem has been destroyed as punishment for Judah’s breaking the covenant with God. The holy city was demolished and all of its leaders and upper-class folks were carried off to captivity in Babylon. There they wailed, as we read in Psalm 137, that they could not “sing the Lord’s song” in an alien land.
Then in the sixth century, Isaiah proclaimed that God was about to do a new thing, bringing release to the captives and return to the land of the exiles. Once the desert was arid, now it will blossom with crocuses and rejoice with singing. Once the wilderness was dangerous, now water will flow creating ponds and lakes for reeds and rushes to grow.
When God does a new thing, God not only restores to the order God desires but God restores the world and makes it better than it was before. No longer the jackal will hang around or the lion ready to pounce on its prey. This will be a new world!
Highway to the New Kingdom
When God does a new thing, God doesn’t just do a half-done job. Unlike when we see how long road construction can take—it looks like it’s never completed until it’s time to overhaul the whole road again. God finishes his work. He takes down the “road construction ahead” signs.
Besides making the world new again, God also takes care of his people. When the returning exiles come home, they won’t have to trudge through uncharted wilderness. It won’t be like this section of SF where the Central Freeway, Van Ness, and transit lines collide in awkward and dangerous ways. God will build a highway that will be called “the Holy Way.”
No longer is the desert a trackless void in which travelers can easily lose their way. Now there’s a highway on which not even fools could get lost because it leads straight to Zion.
While this “no toll,” free Holy Highway is open for anyone, we still have to choose to go on it.
This Holy Highway is not traveled on by unclean people but rather for people like the lepers who were cleansed by Jesus. “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” (Luke 7:22) These are all God’s people.
This Holy Highway is not traveled on only by wise people but also by foolish people. But when fools realized that they have sinned against God, they too will not go astray.
This Holy Highway is traveled on by redeemed people who intervene for those who are weak along the road. They bring wholeness to the community. The redeemed people on the road know with whom and to whom and for whom they belong. They belong to God.
This Holy Highway is traveled on by the ransomed people who God paid a price for their lives. Israel belongs to God.
In Isaiah 35, we have traveling on this Holy Highway, the clean-wise-redeemed-ransomed people of God. They are all rejoicing. They are on their way to a new Zion, now fully guaranteed, watered, and healed. The homecoming is full of joy and gladness. The Holy Highway is not a congested traffic jam but a miraculous highway that takes us safely home.
Jesus the Holy Way
In John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the Life.” When we know Jesus, we come to know God the Father. Ever since that time, Christians have affirmed this, that Christ is the Way to salvation. Before the early church called themselves “Christians” or the “church,” they referred themselves as “followers of the Way.”
In this season of Advent, we are waiting for the coming of the Way, the “Holy Way” so that we can travel home. We are looking for the blossoming of the deserts in our spirits, the return of peace and joy in our lives.
We like Judah may be exiled and in captivity for the sinful things that we have done. Our lives are arid like the desert and confusing like being lost in the wilderness. Our hands may be weak from our unwillingness to help our neighbors. Our knees are feeble from our lack of not walking in God’s path of justice and righteousness. Our eyes may be blind from only seeing what our needs are. And our ears are deaf from placing our weak hands over them because we refuse to hear God’s commandments to love him and his creation.
But the good news on this Advent Day of Joy is that there’s no other by-passes, fly-overs, short-cuts, and even fast bus lanes to get home. There’s no other way to Jesus. Jesus is the Super Highway!
The joy is that not only does God restores nature to order and makes it better than it was before, God restores his people and makes them better than they were before. All their physical suffering have been healed and their fears are dispelled. We were cursed with ears that do not hear, eyes that do not see, and minds that do not understand God’s intentions. All of this is replaced with the promised of bodies made whole and a God that can be heard clearly calling his people to new life.
Jesus, the Way is the fulfillment of God’s promise when he told the followers of John the Baptist,
“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their
sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them And blessed is anyone
who takes no offense to me.” (Luke 7:22-23)
Today we witnessed the baptism of Justin Louie and Michelle Louie. When they affirmed the Good News that Jesus is the Way in their lives, they proclaimed that their eyes can see now, their ears can hear now, their weak hands are strengthened, their feeble knees are firm, and their lives are made cleaned. For them Jesus is the Holy Highway and they have come home with singing and everlasting joy and gladness!
If you have come this morning with a desire in your heart to find water in the desert parts of your life and you are seeking to find God’s Holy Highway to come home, I pray that you would take a moment to ask Jesus Christ into your life. Let him be the highway home to God. We want you to come and speak with Pastor Chris or with me about your desire to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior.
Everlasting Highway
Who knows when the road construction might begin on Van Ness Avenue? The planners will be making their case to the public as well as to city and state officials who control pieces of the area. But there’s one thing that we do know for sure is that when construction begins, there will be a lot of orange cones around warning us that there is “road construction ahead.”
Even when it might change the landscape and the way we travel, it is still a human construction. If contractors are honest and they use the best materials, the road will still deteriorate in time. Sooner or later, due to weather, the pounding of heavy trucks and big busses, and the pressures from millions of cars passing on them, the road will break down and will need to be repaired or replaced.
But not the Highway promised by God in Isaiah. God, not human beings, will build it. Its materials consist not of steel and concrete but of the promises of God and the salvation in Jesus the Christ. God’s Highway has no toll. It’s free and open to anyone to travel on. But you still have to choose to take it. It’s the main road to get from where you are to come home to God.
When you and I are traveling God’s Holy Highway home, you can be sure that there won’t be any of these orange cones around.
Let us pray.
Gracious God, we thank you for the promises of a new reality when the way home to you is Jesus the Christ. Lead us to come to know you in a powerfully new and life-changing way. We pray for your loving presence to come upon us and to save us from ourselves so that we can be with you. With joy in our hearts, we pray for forgiveness and your grace. Amen.