Snow Way

My wife took my son to the Northern Peninsula Michigan this weekend for a college visit.  Despite the long and mild fall that we have enjoyed in the midst of the upper mid-west, my wife found herself racing to reach her destination before the first real snow storm of the winter bore down on Marquette Michigan.  She arrived just ahead of the gale force winds that promised to bring up to 24 inches of snow to the region.  We have yet to tell if the girls and I will even see them again until spring or if they will be perpetually stuck in the permafrost of shores of Lake Superior. 

Having grown up in the northern half of Minnesota, I too have spent my share of time driving on snowm covered back country roads as well as attempting to race ahead of a coming tempests of winter.  I have been fortunate to be able to keep my vehicles between the deep snow filled ditches…for the most part. 

Upon looking at some of my past decisions to drive, despite travel warnings, I can only imagine God almighty shaking his head at my undeveloped teenage brain and telling his guardian angels to get down there and do their best to keep that rusty rear wheeled drive Plymouth from veering off the icy road.  It is possible that I may have single handedly kept those angels employed in the unending task of keeping me alive and safe. 

I recall one such evening, as I foolishly decided to go Christmas shopping alone to Fargo North Dakota while schooling in Fergus Falls, MN.  I departed after dark, when the snow had already begun to fall.  It wasn’t long before I was spinning my wheels and sliding my back end…both the car and my own…as I struggled down I94 heading westward.  Thanks in part to the posi-traction drive train of the Grand Fury and the sweating angels around me, I arrived safely in North Dakota’s largest city, where I spent a couple of hours purchasing gifts for my mother, father and girlfriend.  I got nothing for my brothers or sister. 

I then began twirling my balding tires back toward my college apartment.  Once back onto I94, I was greeted with a sheer blanket of white.  It was nearly impossible to see out the windshield in the turbulent blowing snow of the blizzard, which covered the surface of the road entirely.  I was unable to determine where the right or the left side of the highway began and ended, let alone how to stay in my own lane.  I listened to the voice coming over the radio speaking of the travel warnings and the fact that “Interstate 94” is being shut down due to hazardous conditions.  Oh…this…was…not…good.

Yellow lights began to flash in my rear view mirror.  The enormous Minnesota plow caught me quickly as I was only making a peak of about 15 miles per hour.  The massive truck blew past me in a cloud of white.  I braked to a near stop for fear of driving into the ditch in the complete white out condition.  Yet…as soon as he passed, there lay before me a path of glorious pavement.  I sped up just enough to tuck myself in behind the plow which had suddenly revealed the way.

I think that in a way…this is what John the Baptist was doing as he preached at the threshold of Jesus’ public ministry, (Matthew 3:1-12).  The Israelites are stuck in a proverbially snow covered road and they can’t see a way.  John himself was NOT the way…yet, he revealed - The Way.  He prepared the people to be able to see that the Way had come and things were about to change.  The entire world was about to be turned upside down.

May the Lord reveal Jesus as the way in our everyday lives as we follow his straight and narrow path toward His Upside Down Kingdom.