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| "John the Baptist Preaching" Giambattista Pittoni (18th Cent.) |
He went into all the region around the
Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it
is writt5en in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one
crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths
straight.’” (Luke 3:4)
Prepare. Boy! Is there ever a ton of stuff to prepare when we get close to Christmas time. My first duty at home is to string the outdoor Christmas lights, a chore I like to perform sometime in November before the weather gets too cold and my fingers go numb. My HOA won’t let me turn the lights on before the Friday after Thanksgiving, but by then I’m all prepared.
I’ll bet lots of folks see December coming up on their calendars and start to make preparations. You have to start thinking of the holiday meals you’re going to make, what stuff you’ll need, who’s coming, etc. You also have to prepare your schedule. What events will you want to attend? If you have kids, you’ll think about the events you’ll be required to attend and plan accordingly. I always start to prepare the liturgies for Christmas Eve—and thanks to the good folks who make vaccines, we can actually have Christmas Eve again—well in advance. I also asked my church council to start planning events and activities which would make this Advent season feel just a little bit more “normal.”
Christmas gift buying certainly takes preparation. Because of the breakdown COVID has caused in our supply chains, you really have to prepare in advance if you want to get that special something for that special someone. And of course, given the fact that the COVID virus is still with us these twenty months after our first shut-down, we need to prepare ourselves with booster shots and make sure we’ve got our masks handy should we try to make an assault on the shopping mall.
But how do we prepare our hearts for the coming of Jesus?
Haven’t you ever felt that all the preparations for celebrating this sacred festival of the Church have left you without the ability to enjoy it?
It’s always good—as the Boy Scouts like to say—to be prepared. But I wonder what preparations we really ought to be making. God certainly knew that the world would not be ready to meet God’s Son without a bit of preparation, so God anointed John the Baptist as Jesus’ “advance man.” This wonderful, eccentric, tell-it-like-it-is character always pops up in our lessons for Advent 2 (Luke 3:1-6)[i] and Advent 3 (Luke 3:7-18). If times were confusing and people felt uncertain—as we do now—someone had to tell them in advance what God might be up to. After all, if you don’t know what you’re looking for, how will you know when you see it?
The peasants who came out to the Jordan to
listen to John probably thought that the world was going to be the way it was
and there was nothing they could do about it. So John told them to work on the
thing they could do something about—themselves.
John called them to look inward, to examine their hearts, confess their sins,
and be ready to be made knew. When I think of John’s message, I always think of
steps four through nine in the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Step program. It is,
essentially, the same thing. Admit you’ve been wrong, confess, and be ready to
let God make you anew. Again, if you don’t know that you’re wrong, you can’t be
made right. If you’re not open to change, you’re certainly NOT going to be open
to Jesus!
This Advent I’ve decided to make some preparations myself. First, I’ve admitted that my addictive personality has led me to become something of a sugar junkie. I’ve always had cookies and other snacks in my office and I sometime binge eat on them when I can’t think of what to write in a sermon or if I get bored doing some administrative task. I started to restrict my sugar intake, and I’m happy to report that I feel a whole lot better. Quite aside from lowering my chances of developing type 2 diabetes, my added energy might make me a nicer person to be around.
I’ve also decided, since I’m in the mood to remove harmful things from my life, to stop binging on contempt. Too often when I have some extra time I’ll check in on Youtube with political commentators who, basically, reinforce the opinions I already have. This may make me feel smugly superior, but who wants to be around a smugly superior person? All of these op/eds are just empty calories that neither enlighten me nor make me closer to God. Granted my views on public policy haven’t changed, but I’m giving up the need to get worked up about them.
Thirdly, since I’m not staying up to hear late night TV comics reinforce my opinions, I’m actually determined to get more sleep. It’s amazing how blissful an extra hour or hour and a half of shut-eye can be! Especially as I consider how everything in our culture tells us this is the season to do more—attend more parties, shop more stores, go to more events. If we’re listening to John preach, maybe this should be the season to rest more, relax more, and prepare ourselves by dwelling on the meaning of the coming feast.
God is telling us, “I love you, my child. I know you. I hear you. That’s why I’ve sent my Son to share everything with you. Open your heart and let me in.”
A blessed Advent to you all.
[i] I
really like the detail Luke gives in verses 1and 2. All of this historical
stuff puts John and Jesus firmly into the human story. This isn’t a “once upon
a time” fairy tale. This is an account of events which actually took place in a
specific time, place, and under specific circumstances.
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