Just a few days ago we celebrated, if that’s the right word, the thirtieth anniversary of something we all love to hate. Imagine observing the anniversary of something that has cost us dearly in dollars and also in blood and tears. Something we cannot live without, but sometimes wonder if we can live with. Something which has become a symbol of Washington and its ways; something which stimulates growth and yet stifles it; something which ties together the diverse people of our area but also divides them. You love it but, unless I miss my guess, you also hate it. What am I speaking of? The Beltway! We observed the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Capital Beltway!
This peculiar road, the Beltway, is a symbol of many things. It represents the nearsightedness of Washington insiders, so that the rest of the country says, "Ah, the real people don’t believe that stuff. That’s an inside the Beltway viewpoint."
The Beltway represents the self-importance of Washington. Places to go and people to see. Go, go, go; fast and faster. Some of us remember when the legal speed limit was 70 instead of 55, and they ignored the 70 then just as much as they ignore the 55 now. But we who drive the Beltway aggressively seem to be saying, "We are on our way, somewhere, somewhere important, and fast." As the Bible says, or at least ought to say, "Blessed are they which go around in circles, for they shall be known as big wheels."
The Beltway even represents this city’s dividedness. It hasn’t been so very long ago that "inside the Beltway" was said to mean old, decaying neighborhoods, laden with crime; and "outside the Beltway" was taken to mean neighborhoods of refugees, struggling with crabgrass and pretending to live in the country. None of that was really true, but the Beltway provided a nice big fence through which we could not see.
But this highway is also, for me, a symbol of our spiritual realities. This noxious road, this engine of pollution, this trail we have to use but hate to use (every time she visits us, my mother-in-law says, "Do we have to ride on that road?") – this Beltway teaches us about our spiritual realities.
I want to talk this morning about grief and guilt. Grief and guilt. Two aspects of our spiritual reality, two things we know we want to leave behind. Sixty miles of concrete will teach us about grief and guilt.
I
First, grief. Have you noticed that the Beltway doesn’t go anywhere? It has neither beginning nor ending, neither start nor finish. It’s just a circle, 60 miles around, going nowhere.
One reporter, writing on the occasion of the Beltway’s anniversary, remembered his parents’ confusion the first time they drove on the new highway. His father insisted, despite all that the mother had read about this new road, that all highways go somewhere. They have to. It was impossible for a highway to go in a big circle. So they drove and drove and about an hour later found themselves right back where they started! Lots of going, lots of driving, but no actual progress. The Beltway is a big busy road that goes nowhere.
Think about how grief works. Grief is emotional energy spent but going nowhere. Lingering grief is emotional energy being burned off, but without real progress. When we cannot stop grieving our losses, we get so caught up in that grief that we find ourselves stumbling on and on, never getting anywhere.
Maybe some of you are caught in that vicious circle right now. Maybe you can feel, even today, what I’m talking about. Some loss is sending you in circles. Maybe it is the death of someone you loved. Maybe it is the loss of a meaningful relationship. Maybe it is the loss of a job or the loss of your finances or the loss of your health. Whatever it is, if you’re grieving that loss, and you are grieving it in such a way that you just cannot get out of it, then you’re going in circles. You find yourself thinking about that loss when you should be doing other things. You are absorbed in your loss, you’re caught in it at the strangest times. You find you just cannot get going. Everything that you do seems to come back on itself. You are traveling in a circle, moving rapidly but not really getting anywhere.
Grief, you see, until it is directed, saps our energies and confuses our hearts. How do you get out of this terrible circle?
Well, a few years back they erected some mileage markers along the Beltway. Even though the road itself goes nowhere, on it are various intersections that do lead somewhere. Drivers just need to know how far it will be until they reach that somewhere. And so they put up mileage markers to give hope that soon there would be a way off the circle.
Did you know that God has set up a mileage marker? God has placed a mileage marker out there on the circle of grief. That marker is the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ is a mileage marker for our grief, because on the cross there is one who identifies with our grief, one who absorbs our grief into himself. "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." The cross of Christ means that God Himself enters into our painful losses and directs them. The crucified Christ shows us that grief and pain can finally lead us somewhere.
Paul puts it this way: "We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy spirit ... For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life."
The cross is a mileage marker. It tells us we are making progress. Look at all the way stations. Suffering produces endurance; and endurance character; and character hope. Hope; growth. For when you and I see the crucified Christ, we see God Himself, entering into our most anguishing experiences and taking them into Himself. And there as he bears our griefs and carries our sorrows, we find that we do not have to stay in the endless cycle of grief. He leads us from grief through endurance to character to hope, through His cross.
Grief, like the Beltway, goes nowhere. But the cross is a mileage marker, inviting us to cast all our cares on Christ, who will take us from grief to hope and give us life.
II
But there is not only the issue of grief. There is also guilt. Both grief and guilt dog our tracks; both grief and guilt must be dealt with.
So, I have another observation about the Beltway. Have you noticed that not only does the Beltway not go anywhere, just a circle; but also have you discovered that the Beltway has never been finished? Thirty years old and still not finished, once and for all?
Yes, they opened it with a flourish not very far from here in August of 1964, cutting ribbons at the interchange with New Hampshire Avenue. But later they pushed in the ramps from 1-95, causing changes in the New Hampshire Avenue intersection; and then, when the plans for I-95 were shelved, they rebuilt those ramps and made more changes at New Hampshire; and as soon as that was done, they installed soundproof walls up to and including New Hampshire; and while the last wall panel was being put into place, they announced plans to rebuild the bridges and ramps at, guess where, New Hampshire; and now that that is finished, what do we have? Overnight closings so that a new surface can be put down; and where? New Hampshire Avenue. Don’t I wish I had stock in the company that makes and rents those Jersey barriers!
So, is the Beltway finished? No. No. Never has been and probably never will be. Road work never seems to get finished.
Now think about how guilt operates. Guilt is never finished. Guilt is never quite worked through. We are plagued by guilt, obsessed by guilt, we travel with guilt, never finished. Like the Beltway, where as soon as one project is completed, another pops up to take its place – and why not, it’s only your tax dollars – like road work which is never finally done, our guilt lingers, it stays with us, it keeps blocking us. Unless there is a solution; unless somebody can get it done, once and for all.
Now I’ve made a brazen statement about guilt; I’ve said that we all have it, in one form or another. You may find that hard to take. But I do believe it’s true. We are all stopped and disabled by guilt. It just shows up in different ways in different people.
Some people handle guilt by pretending not to have any; they seem to do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it, with reckless abandon, feeling no pain. But do you know that frenzied self-indulgence is often only a mask for guilt? And the most carefree person often turns out to be laden with guilt, laughing loud in order to keep from crying.
Other people handle guilt by teasing with it. They will say something or do something that invites you to discover them. They will drop broad hints or take some actions that invite us to catch them at their wrongdoing. The only way they can deal with their guilt is to make sure they get caught. They are crying out for help in a backhanded kind of way.
Never mind all the details. I’m simply saying that all of us carry around some secrets. We know what we have done; we understand what we are doing; we don’t like it. And, more than that, we know that unless we can complete it, it will destroy us.
Guilt is a disab1er. Guilt is a roadblock. Every strategy we devise to take care of feeling guilty only worsens it. Like the road work on the Beltway, it is never finished. Like an endless series of detours, it keeps on sending us off the track.
Now my wife, when she is driving the Beltway, absolutely will not tolerate roadblocks. If she finds herself about to be blocked by construction or traffic or anything that might possibly require her to lift her dainty foot off the accelerator, she will look for an alternative. She will travel the back roads and play her hunches; she will navigate by the signs, by the stars and by the moss on the trees in order not to get stuck in traffic. As for me, however, I have to stay with the plan. I stay with the plan no matter how badly the plan is going. If I am in the right hand lane and the right hand lane is stalled, it never occurs to me to try the three clear lanes, much less to get off the road. I get stuck in my unproductive patterns and I don’t see the way out.
That’s the way a lot of us are about our guilt. We know we’re in it, we hate it, we are held back by it, but it never occurs to us to read the signs that would tell us how to finish it.
But, don’t you see, God has planted a signpost out there on that road. God has given a sign and a signal that guilt can be finished. That signpost is the cross of Christ. The cross directs us to a way out; the cross leads around the blockage. For when we look at the cross, what do we see?
"God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God." The cross is a signpost, showing us the way out of guilt through the sheer, accepting love of God. "God proves His love for us" by the cross; and if God loves us, we don’t have to be guilty any more. Guilt can be finished.
I read about a man who spent thousands of dollars to buy billboard space just across the street from his girlfriend’s home. Displayed in letters three feet high, for all the world to see, was his unmistakable message, "Lisa, I love you; marry me. Jeff." The cross is God’s billboard, spread across the face of history, proclaiming, "I love you. My child, I love you. Come home. This way." And it cost Him; it cost Him the very life of His Son. But this way home, this way love.
This way. Get out of the guilt; it can be finished when you come home to the love of God.
III
And so this morning, as I have done the last two Sundays, I point you to the cross. I invite you to receive the cross and to feel its peace. "Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Neither grief nor guilt but peace.
I point you to the cross: no longer just an idea, a doctrine, impenetrable and mysterious, but a mileage marker from grief to hope. "Suffering produces endurance and endurance character and character hope." You can get out of grief; in its place is life, life and peace.
I point you to the cross: no longer an abstraction or a symbol, but a signpost, proclaiming that God loves you unconditionally. "God proves His love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us." Guilt is finished; in its place is grace, grace and peace.
Another reporter, reminiscing about the first time he drove the Beltway thirty years ago, spoke about learning to recognize and use the exits. He drove for a number of miles and, too late, saw the place where he wanted to get off. And so he drove all the way around again, not knowing what else to do. Lo and behold, when he came around, he missed his exit for the second time, and drove all the way around yet again! Some of us have heard the old, old story of Jesus and His love so many times; we’ve gone around and around and we’ve still never taken hold, we’ve still not given up and got off and allowed the cross to touch us.
What can I do? I can only tell you we are now at the exit, one more time. I can only point you to the cross: no longer grief or guilt, but peace. The road work is finally finished; peace.
At the cross, no longer sorrow or shame, but peace. It is finished. Peace. At the cross.
At the cross, no longer danger or disappointment, but peace. It is finished. Peace. At the cross.
At the cross, no longer anxiety or anger, but peace.
At the cross, no longer pain or pouting, but peace.
At the cross, no longer stress or distress, but peace. At the cross.
For there, once and for all, He took upon Himself the pain of our grief and the burden of our guilt; there He, for the sake of the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. There He cries, in victory, "It is finished." The road work is finally finished. Get off the Beltway right now; read the mileage markers telling you how far you’ve come from grief and how near it is to hope. Get off the Beltway as soon as you can; follow the signpost away from guilt and just come home.
For the road work is finally finished.
