Bar 5:1-9 / Phil 1:4-6, 8-11 / Lk 3:1-6
Two little Martians landed on a country road on earth in the middle of a cold, dark night. “Where are we?” asked the one.
“I think we’re in a cemetery,” said the other. “There’s a marker over here. It says…this man lived to be 108!”
“Wow! What was his name?”
The other Martian leaned closer and squinted, “Miles from Omaha.”
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At times we all feel like those Martians, far away from home, in a cold, dark place, with no familiar landmarks.
Sometimes the dark, unfamiliar place is the inside of our head. And we have the terrible experience of feeling cut off from our own self, a stranger to our self. It’s a very lonely feeling.
Sometimes the cold, dark place is all around us as we find ourselves on the outside of love and friendship, wanting to get in but not knowing how. It’s a sad and lonely place to be.
Our hearts know how life is supposed to be. There is something inside us, something God put there, that tells us that cold and darkness and being an outsider are not what we were made for.
There is something powerful inside us that tells us we are made to be family, the whole lot of us. Family, where everybody knows our name, where there are no strangers, where every face brightens when they hear the familiar sound of our step, and where we can feel the presence of our Father.
Family. It’s what we long for and what we’re made for. So why do we get so little of it? Why do we spend so much of our life as outsiders, cut off, in exile in the cold and the dark?
The answer is in Sunday’s scripture: within us and between us there are places that are wounded and broken. There are gaping holes and lofty barriers in us and between us, and they keep us in exile, keep us from finding our way home.
So what are we to do? Sunday’s scripture, which was written while the Jews were in exile in a distant land, gives the answer: name those sorry, wounded places within us and between us, and don’t hold onto them. Name them and give them to the Lord, for He has commanded “that every lofty mountain be made low, that the age-old depths and gorges be filled in, that the crooked places in us be made straight and the rough places in us be made smooth,” that we may see the salvation of God, that we may, at last, find our way home. We simply must give all those sorry, wounded places to Him, all the dark and empty places. Give them all to Him and He will bring us home. He will bring us home!
