Advent---A Blue Ridge Follow-Up

[HKHaugan]

“And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it (Is.35:8 NIV).”

It’s the highway that needs to be built. It’s a holy highway. It’s a highway paved with faith. It’s highway dedicated to moving across the ridges and peaks where the air is pure and rarified and that air is the fruit of the Spirit as He connects each toward God and one another. It is the unity of the Spirit that gives the highway its clarity and direction. Thus the mountain peaks, ridges, even the forests and valleys to either side are identified together as the ‘range,’ the singular unified terrain that stands above the lowland wilderness. This is the Body of Christ, the assembled hearts ‘ranged’ across a world wilderness looking to Heaven and ready to bring the lost up and above onto and part of the ‘range,’ the Body of Christ.

It’s always interesting to note how many hills, rises, ridges and mountain peaks have a Cross on them. Even where roofs peak you find a Cross. It is the Cross on Mt.Calvary, Jerusalem on Mt.Zion, the Sermon on the Mount, the Law on Mt.Sinai, the Transfiguration on another mount and the shadow of the future Cross on another mountain when Abraham took Isaac and God substituted a ram to honor Abraham’s faith. Every one of those crosses were made in faith, obeyed in faith, anticipated in faith, built in faith, paved in faith and endured in faith.

Even something as mundane as a fence has its post and traversing beams or wires. It is as though the Cross were built into Creation. We are always looking up in order to look to either side. It is the worth and value that stands vertically above the horizontal contracts, documents and agreements we sign. Returning to our Way, our highway to God and one another, isn’t every physical highway, road, avenue and street criss-‘crossed?’ We cross the street, we cross our hearts, we cross over and stop at railroad crossings.

God would have us be reminded of the Cross as the ultimate noun and verbalize it into action. The Cross is the junction between God and man and man and man. Jesus’ view on the Cross was upward to His Father and sideward in both directions to the thieves on the Cross and on those who put Him there. He spoke with words of forgiveness from above to those across and beneath Him. As we move about it is the Cross that guides us to every next peak across the ridge because it is through the Cross we open our heart long the Way to the heart of God and to other hearts at the same time.

Consider these verses from Ps.132, put them in the spiritual context we have presented. Apply them to where we are right now,
“13 For the LORD has chosen Zion,
he has desired it for his dwelling, saying,
14 “This is my resting place for ever and ever;
here I will sit enthroned, for I have desired it.
15 I will bless her with abundant provisions;
her poor I will satisfy with food.
16 I will clothe her priests with salvation,
and her faithful people will ever sing for joy.
17 “Here I will make a horn[a] grow for David
and set up a lamp for my anointed one.
18 I will clothe his enemies with shame,
but his head will be adorned with a radiant crown (NIV).”