Fosdick agreed. New York City was full of temptations. It was filled with things that tugged at a person's heart. But Dr. Fosdick also said that he was glad to live there, since, just as there were many temptations of evil, so there were multitudes of temptations to glory. There was the Metropolitan Opera, where a person could be held in the sway of great music. There were the art galleries where you could lose yourself in wonder. There were colleges and universities where temptations to learning soared. There were libraries where the wisdom of the world beckoned.

So it is with us. It is a scary road to travel, this road at the edge of eternity, this highway parallel to heaven. It is easier to try to go back inland where you are not tempted to jump over the cliff. But then you would miss the other temptations as will -- the temptation to know life in the fullness that God intended for it; the temptation to soar on wings of love and of mercy and of grace and of beauty and of song. The scriptures speak of heaven that way because they know that the best of what we experience now is only the beginning of what life will be like when Jesus returns.

Charles Williams, one of the Inklings with C. S. Lewis at Oxford, wrote a small volume called Outline of Romantic Theology. He said that for too long Christians have tried to summarize their faith in dogmas of theory and creeds of intellect and in rational statements of mental construct. Unfortunately, he said, that is not what Christianity is all about. The Christian religion is a romance. It is a love affair as deep and as true and as powerful as God Himself is.

Why did God make this world? Because He wanted to express His love.

Why did God allow us to sin? Because He wanted to give us the freedom to choose to love Him or not.

Why did Jesus come? To woo us back to love. To court us into the best of life.

What is heaven? Heaven is love made complete.

That's the "outline of romantic theology" in a nutshell.

And when Paul talks about Jesus coming again, He is calling us to live life here to the full, to run the road at the edge of eternity, to keep the panorama of heaven before us, and to allow it to beckon us on toward the place where the road turns again.

It is not craziness to celebrate advent. Nor does it take us out of this world, like Delta Dawn or Screwy Louis. Advent says that the best of life here is what Jesus brought with Him that day when He stepped over the cliff at Bethlehem. And better things are coming still, as we travel the road next to eternity.

Where are your eyes? What are you looking at? At the road? At the cliffs of rocks? At the distant inland? Too bad for you, because you are missing out on the best there is -- the wonders of paradise next door. Charles Williams found that he couldn't write all that he needed to write about Christianity in books of theology, so he turned his hand instead to novels. Novels of mystery and suspense and wonder and romance.

In one he describes Nancy. Most of her life she has lived in the safety of sleep. She may be on the road, but the road is all she sees.

Then, one Christmas morning, she goes, because of duty, to a tiny country church. A voice announces the first hymn, and they turn in their books to number 61. They stand with the choir and mouth the words:

Christians, awake! Salute the happy morn

Whereon the Savior of the world was born!

Suddenly Nancy wakes up. Her voice catches. She can't go on, because the words stare up at her and bring tears to her eyes:

Rise to adore the mystery of love ...

Suddenly she wants to see Jesus. Suddenly she wants to look into eternity. Suddenly she wants to know and to feel and to do the best she can in life.

Rise to adore the mystery of love ...

She feels herself standing suddenly on the brink of eternity, where the road runs parallel with heaven. Where Jesus steps into our lives and suddenly we wake to the glories of His love.