During the years I lived in Tamworth, I watched some major road building projects taking shape. The new M6 Toll Motorway took shape, providing a way around the
congestion of Birmingham (for those prepared to pay). Perhaps like me you have paid a few pounds for the novelty of driving along in freely flowing traffic!
As soon as that project finished, work started on the A5, by-passing a section of the Roman Watling Street that ran through the village of Hints and up and down some very deceptive dips in what looked like a straight piece of road. To do this the path for a dual carriageway was excavated out of a hill next to the village. Huge amounts of earth were shifted, obstacles removed and embankments built to prepare the way for a new road.
The prophet Isaiah had a similar process in mind when he proclaimed:
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low;
The crooked straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:3-4)
In Isaiah’s day, a triumphal highway would be cleared for a visiting king, boulders and trees would be removed, hills levelled and valleys bridged so that nothing would hinder the king’s progress. The prophet uses this as a picture of the coming of the Messiah, and this was taken up by John the Baptist as he prepared the way for Jesus.
Rev David Goodwin
