ON THE day I used to be born (22 December 1965, because you ask), the 70-mph speed limit was introduced on UK roads. I’m not suggesting that these two events are linked, although, as a toddler, I did own a cherished collection of Matchbox cars, and my late dad’s party piece — long before I learned to speak — was to call out at random the name of every model and have me silently point to it, with (I blush) 100- per-cent accuracy.
No, that laws late in ’65 was provoked by automobile manufacturers’ racing their prototypes on the M1 with undue haste and too little look after others on the road. Along with the recent Wales-wide speed restrictions, it’s a rare example of the applying of brakes to an ever-accelerating modern culture: fast food, easy messaging, speed dating, and Snapchat.
In the month of my baptism the next 12 months, an unlikely single shot to the dizzy heights of 25 within the charts. It set the quite dry words of the Highway Code to Anglican chant, was sung by 4 churchgoing teachers from Abingdon School, Oxfordshire, and, remarkably, was produced by George Martin, of Beatles fame. A later collaboration gave the identical treatment to the weather forecast.
Like the Bible, the Highway Code is one among the few books in print that may lay claim to having saved hundreds of lives. It might be also true of each that they’re rarely read from cover to cover. The Highway Code’s present paperback version runs to 127 pages, but the primary edition — published almost a century ago, on 14 April 1931 — had only 18, of which several were adverts for the RAC, AA, and other motoring organisations, in addition to a genteel introduction by Herbert Morrison, the Transport Minister on the time.
Given that there aren’t any references to road signs, stopping distances, traffic lights, or mirrors, its slimness is unsurprising. But it bulked up in later editions as improvements in traffic management and road safety, the arrival of motorways, and wider social developments necessitated significant additions and revisions.
Quaint and archaic directions regarding horse-drawn carriages quietly disappeared; and in got here lengthy instructions on how, when, and where the usage of a cell phone is permitted in a vehicle.
Yet, throughout its history, an appeal for drivers to be respectful of each other has lent the Highway Code a way of continuity, irrespective of how briskly and furious the driving experience — or modern life — has develop into. One rule that features in each the unique and the newest editions is that each one road users have to be careful and considerate towards others, putting safety first.
ANOTHER code bears the identical hallmarks of renewal and reinterpretation: the so-called Deuteronomic Code: present in the book of Deuteronomy, and on through into Kings. At its heart is a setting out of a set of laws that make up the terms of the covenant between God and nomadic Israel.
Deuteronomy is the last pit-stop on a protracted road trip — on the border between Israel’s looking forward to the Promised Land and being in that land. Like the Highway Code, it provides rules for the road, presented as a motivational sermon, given in Moab by Moses, urging faithful obedience to the laws received 40 years earlier at Sinai.
Scholars generally agree, nonetheless, that the book dates from a much later period, and point to evidence of edits and accretions. Arguably, final composition and compilation took place over the course of 300 or so years, from the eighth century BC to the Exile and beyond.
As latest situations arose, time and time again, the rhetoric of Moses was wheeled out and recalled. Hence, regardless of the twists within the road — enslavement or wilderness, repression or exile — Israel clung to God’s covenant faithfulness, and to a shared tradition of its origins in an exodus from Egypt: remember Yahweh; remember how you’ve got been saved.
In this fashion, the Deuteronomic Code may be understood as a long-term exercise in Israelite identity formation, and reinforcing that identity in the sunshine of deportation, displacement, and diaspora. In particular, Israel was to haven’t any truck with foreign cults and their newfangled practices. Rather, to grasp who they were, they only needed to look back — to the past, and whence that they had come.
AT TIMES, we’re all vulnerable to this plan of action. Even this text began with birth and baptism stories. It was an attempt at telling you who I’m by telling you who I used to be — and where I actually have come from.
These may be considered alpha stories: establishing our identity by telling others about our origins, where we set out from. Christians often resort to this. We read ourselves back to Genesis, to its story of creation or of the Fall, to clarify why we’re the best way we’re, pining for God’s company and yet too often reaching for the flawed things.
For so long as there have been humans, there have been stories like these: stories of our beginnings, of our ancestors; default settings that help explain who we’re and why we’re here. Alpha stories speak to and luxury us, especially once we appear to have stalled in life or met a roadblock. Retracing our steps offers one sort of route home.
But omega stories are essential, too: not our origin stories, but our destination stories: those that discover who we’re by telling us where we’re heading — and shape us for that ultimate destination. Here, Easter leads the best way. Jesus has accomplished the course, done life’s journey already, gone on ahead, prepared a spot for us; he’s “the Way”, and we’re encouraged to follow his tail-lights.
In this season, the highways are roads to Emmaus and Damascus. We “press on to assert the prize”, unconcerned with what’s within the rear-view mirror, looking as an alternative for resurrection (because the Creed puts it).
IF YOU do drive from coast to coast, because it were, reading the Bible from cover to cover, before long, Genesis and the garden of Eden are dots in the gap. Eventually, you ride into Revelation, and, at length, the New Jerusalem — that beatific vision of God’s end-game for creation. It is a a future that Barbara Brown Taylor puts well: “One . . . where you won’t ever suffer from a shortage of high purpose in your life . . . never wonder why you’re here or what you’re for, because to any extent further each where you got here from and where you’re headed. You are pointed in a certain direction — toward full communion with God and neighbour.”
This destination shouldn’t be one other garden, but a city; for we usually are not routed back to an ideal paradise for 2, but forward, to a conurbation for each nation. It is a reminder that our lives are greater than the sum of all our logbooks. As trees rooted within the earth rise towards the sun, so our lives unfurl towards their ultimate purpose — within the Son.
At journey’s end, the one who’s seated on the throne says, “It is finished! I’m Alpha and Omega, source and summit, your A to Z, the start and the top. You have arrived.” Or so a loose translation of Revelation 21.6 might put it. . .
The Revd Philip Harbridge is a Priest-Vicar of Wells Cathedral.
