Sisters and brothers, grace to you and peace from God our source, Christ our salvation, and the Spirit our sustainer. Amen.

I know I’ve told you this before, but every once in a while, I am tickled by one particular street sign which punctuates our boulevards and avenues in this community. Here and there, every so-many blocks, you will come across it somewhere between a restricted parking and a speed limit sign, and unexpectedly and mysteriously out of the blue there will come the message which simply reads, “SHARE THE ROAD.”

Every time I see that three-word imperative so officially displayed in bold black letters against a lovely yellow street sign background, I sort of have to wonder how the discussion went at the city street commission meeting when such a sign was proposed.

Could it have gone something like this: “My fellow commissioners, the drivers in our community seem to think that they own the road. Our driving public does not seem to be aware of others who are also on the road along with them. My friends, we have a problem on our streets. People are not sharing the road, and I would propose a sign which would very clearly tell them in no uncertain terms that they cannot have the road all to themselves. No, they cannot. They must share it.”

It reminds me of that pithy little gem of an essay written some years ago by Unitarian Universalist pastor Robert Fulghum, entitled “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” in which he reflects upon the most basic things we learned at the very beginning of our lives and our formal education. I doubt very much you were expecting to hear these childlike basics again this morning. But here are his words, good words on the 2nd Sunday in Advent, seemingly out of the blue. Fulghum writes:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. These are the things I learned:

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don’t hit people.
• Put things back where you found them.
• Clean up your own mess.
• Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
• Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
• Wash your hands before you eat.
• Flush.
• Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
• Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
• Take a nap every afternoon.
• When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: the roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.
• Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup — they all die. So do we.
• And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned — the biggest word of all — LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all — the whole world — had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

This morning, from out of the blue, come the words of St. Mark: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark doesn’t begin with angel visitors, nor with a young couple for whom there is no room at a wayside inn, nor with shepherds in their fields, nor with oxen nor mangers nor a babe asleep in the hay. No, in fact if your Christmas card depended upon a scene from St. Mark’s Gospel, it might very well be a road out in the middle of nowhere. And on that road or along the side of it may very well be a strange looking character by the name of John the baptizer, whose attire would not have pleased the animal activists but whose diet of locusts and wild honey would make Euell Gibbons proud.

John’s message, not unlike my favorite road sign, was one that acknowledged that he was not the only one on the road. John’s message, according to St. Mark, was “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.” In other words, “I’m not the only one on this road, and wait until you see the one who’s coming.”

The road, of course, is always seen as a way out or a way in. It’s best to have a road to get where you’re going. For the people of Israel, God had a long history of being “on the road” with them, showing them a way out of bondage in Egypt, creating a path of dry ground for them through the Red Sea, and even when there was no road while they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness, God led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

St. Mark is echoing the ancient words of the prophet Isaiah as the very beginning of good news of Jesus: words which speak of a the voice of a messenger, of a road in the wilderness, and of one whose coming is certain and is drawing near. For St. Mark, the beginning of the good news of Jesus is a very simple message which is that there is a road and upon that road we are met by none other than God himself who promises to “Share the Road” with us in Jesus Christ.

Like the people of Israel knew so well during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, sometimes it feels to us like there is no road ahead of us, no way out, that we are stuck in this present mess we are in. Sometimes the circumstances of life seem to set us on a course that feels much more like we are off-roading and on our own, far from any divine presence or guidance, left alone in our defeat and in our despair, wondering if there is any way out or anyone to point us in the right direction.

The road of life inevitably leads each one of us through the wilderness, through the desert, through the places where we feel alone: alone in our grief over loved ones lost, alone in our fear over an uncertain future, alone in our anxiety over that of which we have no control, alone in our sense of helplessness in a world too needy and too broken to fathom.

To us on that road this day, a voice comes from out of the blue, a voice of one who shares the road with us, a voice which speaks to us of comfort, a herald of good tidings which lifts up its voice and declares “Here is your God!”

Here, on the road. Here, in the mess you are in. Here, amid God’s people broken and imperfect as we may be. Here, in your sadness and grief. Here, in this quiet moment. Here, in a bite of bread and in a sip of wine.

Here is your God, who in Jesus shares the road with you.

And who then sends you right back out into the world to share that road with others, with someone, with your sister or brother in need, so that the words of the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled even through you, “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.”

Amen.