CELC Second Sunday in Advent

The Second Sunday of Advent – December 4, 2005

Mark 1:1-8

The Second Sunday in Advent brings the Word of God: “Prepare the way of the Lord…”

The alarm blares and you reach over and turn it off and go back to sleep. The next thing you are aware of is that it is now 7:15 a.m. and you need to be at work by 8:00. You bound out of bed like an Olympic sprinter at full speed, knowing that if you rush through the morning bathing and dressing ritual, skip breakfast and do not have traffic issues you can make it. You have decided this in a split second because time is now at a premium. Off to the shower you run.

Time is so important. Are there times we cannot forget? Are there times we must be prepared?

For married folks the wedding anniversary is such a time. It is legendary and much humor is made about husbands who forget to purchase their wife a gift for their anniversary because they have totally forgotten the day itself.

I wonder why is this funny? Why do we make jokes? Certainly a day so important in the life of a couple, both husband and wife would remember? It is an anniversary of a holy moment when husband and wife pledge their love and devotion to one another. Certainly it is a day to remember. Time measured in love is precious.

And when we remember an anniversary day perhaps we go about preparing for the celebration much like we go about our Christmas preparation. We look for the perfect gift and when purchased figure the job is finished.

This morning John the Baptist challenges that preparation as being inadequate. There is more to preparing for the coming Lord Jesus at Christmas. Selecting the perfect gift, decorating the house ‘just so’ and otherwise joining friends in overindulgence, is the usual way we prepare for Christmas, for the birth of Jesus.

John the Baptist offers an alternative path to us: “Prepare the way of the Lord…” Yikes, John the Baptist doesn’t want us worrying about the perfect gift or overeating. Rather, the Baptist asks us to prepare the way of the Lord, to make God’s way straight.

And so we ask, “Just how do we prepare the way of the Lord?”

It begins in the cross. It can begin no where else. In preparing for the birth of Jesus at Christmas we go to Golgotha and view him on the cross. What begins at Christmas finds its fulfillment in the cross on the hill. It is there that God with us, Jesus, lives and dies and rises to new life. It is the pivotal event of our lives and grants us the grace and mercy that brings forgiveness and new life. This is the journey; the cross is the destination for Jesus and the starting point for each of us. It is in the cross that our life in the kingdom begins.

So, how do we prepare the way of the Lord? We prepare by going to the cross and discovering there once again the transforming love of God that forgives us and makes us new people; people who can then prepare their hearts for the coming Christ to be born again this Christmas.

After the transforming grace of the cross you can prepare for the coming Jesus. You can do the kind of repenting that John the Baptist speaks of today. You can turn around your mind and with clarity prepare for the coming Jesus.

Think of it this way: If someone important comes to visit at your home you spend a great deal of time getting ready. Imagine for a moment that you might be entertaining President and Mrs. Bush. You would cook just the right food. You would shop and find all the right drinks to serve. Certainly you would clean and clean, finding all those dust bunnies in the corners of every closet that hide from normal cleaning. You would look carefully to make sure that every fingerprint is off the mirror in the bathroom or off the sliding glass door to the deck. If the Bush’s were coming to visit, such preparations you would make.

Well, the Lord of all, the babe of the crib and the crucified one of the cross is coming. Can we get in and clean out the dust bunnies that have formed in the corners of our faith? Can we look carefully at our prayers and see that they are free of the fingerprints of our selfish desires? And what should we do about gifts? How can we honor Jesus with the gifts we give? Can we confess our sin and be healed by the One who is in the cradle and on the cross?

From the shadow of the cross preparation for Jesus looks very different. Transformed by grace and forgiven all our sin, we open our hearts that Christ may dwell there. All our prayer and preparation looks different. We humbly pray for strength to focus on what this moment we call Christmas is all about: the birth of God’s Son, our savior.

And our prayer continues. It continues that Christ will grant us the power of the Holy Spirit to daily focus on hearing what it is God is calling us to do as a congregation. To prepare the way of the Lord we can through prayer see and hear what it is we are to do, especially for others. Prayer will draw to us to the scriptures and there the Holy Spirit will reveal to us who it is we are to serve so that the way of the Lord is prepared for all.

Yes, preparing the way of the Lord is not possible without God. On this side of the cross we do have a choice to make. Will we live these days as the world does and worry only about selecting gifts and overindulging? Or will we set our hearts in prayer on the cross, and beginning there prepare the way of the Lord? It is a different path. It is a different practice. It is distinctive. It is the path, I am convinced, God calls us to today. Amen.

Pastor Robert F. Holley