There's a moment in the movie "Apollo 13" when Commander Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks) describes a harrowing experience during a mission over Korea. It's night and he's running low on fuel when something malfunctions...knocking out all his cockpit electronics. No radio, no lights, no gauges...nothing to help him find the aircraft carrier on which he is to land. This premier piece of aviation technology might as well be a rock since, when he runs out of fuel, thats precisely what it will fall like into the sea.
He prays for a way home and then looks out the cockpit window to the water below. There he sees a green bio-luminescent stream. It's algae...a simple sea-borne plant...that's been stirred up by the propellar of a large ship. He follows it straight to his carrier and a safe landing.
Relocated by their Babylonian captors, a disheartened group of exiles are afraid that they will never see their home, Jerusalem, again. But Isaiah (chapter 35) brings them the promise of a way...a Holy Way across the desert and back to Zion...which God will prepare for them. It's not something they can do on their own. But God who is faithful has not forgotten them, and will lead them by a way so clear and direct that even the most foolish can't mess it up.
What Isaiah foretells comes to pass. Judah does return to Zion in rejoicing. But Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled in still another way...by the advent of God's Messiah...one who doesn't just show the way, but who...by his saving death and resurrection...is the Way.
That's good news in an age which trusts its own technology too much and then despairs the disappointments too deeply. Remember: when the night is dark, when the road is long, when your own efforts have failed, God in Christ is faithful still. By means of humility, self-sacrifice and steadfast love, God gathers us to himself. The way home is there for us and will not fail.
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