Advent is about preparation. Preparing ourselves for a special Guest who is entering the world. Our preparation is a relational thing. When we prepare, something happens to us, something is set up in our future, and something is communicated to the one we are preparing for. Have you considered what Guest is coming, what preparations might be helpful, and what preparing might do for you, your Guest, and your world?
What time is it in your world? It was May 18, 1997. Anybody excited yet? Do you remember that day? Tell me about your experience on May 18, 1997. It was a life-changing day for me (and by extension, for you who read this as well). But simply giving you the date doesn’t help you much, does it? Let’s try again…
It was a dark and stormy night in the small town of Princeton, Illinois. Literally. My very pregnant wife and I were getting ready to spend a tense evening in our basement, where we would wait out the storm. We were listening to the radio for the latest reports. A tornado was seen touching down just West of town. As the center of the storm approached this Normal-Rockwell-like county seat in Northern Illinois, the threatening tornado’s menacing tail in the sky hopped over town to the East. Being so close to the eye of the storm, the entire region experienced a sudden, major drop in barometric pressure. This drop is related to why windows blow out in times of tornadoes – the pressure inside homes literally explodes houses at their most vulnerable points. We would not have been aware of this drop were it not for the presence of water on our floor. Technically, it was the fluid inside my wife’s body that was serving to protect my child. Her “water” broke. We were only 7 ½ months into a 9 month term. Not good. When you hear the details of my May 18, 1997, your experience of the day changes, doesn’t it?
Luke, a medical doctor in his day, begins the story of Jesus’ adult life with enough specificity for folks a generation later (and later and later) to emotionally identify with the timing of Jesus’ entrance into his adult ministry. It wasn’t just, for instance, April 4, 30 AD. It was when Tiberius was emperor. When Pontius Pilate ruled over Judea. When Herod Antipas – that creepy snake – ruled over Jesus’ home region. It was when Annas – or should we say Caiaphas? – was high priest, ruling over Judaism itself. It was a time of despair. Being oppressed by the Romans was bad enough. Being oppressed by those who claimed to hold sway over your relationship with God was even worse. The overwhelming majority of people were very poor, while those who held power – in politics, the military, or in the religious system – enjoyed luxury at the expense of those they ruled. You struggle to scrape up enough food to eat in your thread-bare clothes while you hear reports of lavish parties for a very select group who are dressed really well and who are overfed. How do you think the majority of people felt about their situation in 30 AD?
What time is it for you, today? If you were to write autobiographically about this season in your history, what keywords would you include, and what hints would you give the reader about the state of your being? How would you describe this time in world history that would help the future readers understand your context? Hint: unless and until we come to grips with our “time”, we will not really appreciate what time it is, and what time may come.
Times are changing. We humans do an interesting thing when we feel like we can’t take it anymore, especially if we’ve tried by our own power to change our situation. We look to God to take care of business. We pray harder. We give of ourselves more. We try to determine who is with God and who is not to make sure we are on the right side. We do what we can to make room for God. We look for those who can speak to us and for us about what we hope will come.
John the Baptist, we learn from other Gospels, was just the kind of person for the job. The way he dressed and acted spoke to Jews and non-Jews alike. For Jews, he resembled the prophet Elijah in his choice of clothing – camel skin, leather belt, eating whatever food he could get for free from the land (locusts and wild honey: good protein, sweet, and a nice crunchy mouth-feel…). Looking like a prophet, Jewish people wanting more came to hear what he had to say. For non-Jews, he looked like a Stoic – a wild man dressed to make a statement of contrast to the power structures of the day. By choosing to look and live extremely poor, John was challenging those who claimed to be in control who ignored the plight of the masses around them. He didn't go to the Temple (center of Jewish power) for an audience, either. John came from the wilderness in prophetic fashion, and chose to preach where the people lived, breathed, and traveled.
Luke set the stage before he gave us John’s words by tying what was about to unfold to a prophecy (Isaiah 40) given for a similar context hundreds of years beforehand that still resonated and applied to that time: prepare the way for the Lord’s coming! Clear the path! Make the way easy and straight! Then God’s glory will shine all the more brightly! When this took place, apocalyptic hope was fever-pitch. They were anticipating God’s coming at any moment. Luke’s reference to Isaiah’s words were timely in their original context, in John’s and Jesus’ context, and still today. The new day is coming, so get ready!
The power of preparation. The words of Isaiah and John both passionately communicated two things. First, God was going to show up and redeem the awful situation in which people lived. Second, that preparation was necessary in light of what was coming. The first part is easy and wonderful news that people of all times and places like and understand (even if they don’t fully realize that implications of God’s coming). It’s the preparation part, I think, that gets lost on us in our present time. I think it’s hard to think about preparing when we know the story already: Jesus came. We know way more than John’s original audience. Why prepare? Why not just celebrate it for a couple of months instead of waiting for Christmas Eve? I also think it is hard for us to appreciate this aspect of the story because we don’t like waiting in our culture. We want God to redeem everything yesterday. But there is great power in preparation. This is why knowing the time in which we live is so critical. When we understand our time, we are clear on what we long for. When we’re clear on what we long for, we gain clarity on what to prepare for.
My wife’s parents are coming for a visit in a week. In spite of whatever in-law jokes I’ve made, their visit is always one I look forward to. They are wonderful people who I dearly love and highly respect. But before they get here, we have to prepare for their coming. Of course, we will clean and clean and clean. I also will need to change out our leaky garbage disposal before they come. I need to finish a small drywall project with knockdown and paint. We might even move forward on the next leg of some remodeling we’re doing at our house if we can squeeze it in. All of this in preparation for their coming. Stuff we would do anyway at some point, but now, because of their arrival in just a matter of days, we have urgency.
Truth be told, if we don’t get the repairs done before they arrive, they won’t really care. They are not coming out to behold our new garbage disposal. And, I would venture so far to say that if we chose to do absolutely nothing in terms of cleaning or getting a room ready for them, they may be surprised, but no less eager to be with us. In light of these truths, should we bother preparing for their coming? It's a ton of work - huge downside. Is it worth the trouble? What’s the upside?
Preparation saves time. A very practical reason for moving forward with our preparations simply has to do with time. We don’t get to see Lee and Carolyn very much. We know we will have less than two weeks with them this visit. We want to make the most of that time. Spending a day when they are already here cleaning and getting a room ready would be a terrible waste of those hours we would much rather enjoy simply being together. We prepare for the sake of the time we want to have with them.
Is it much different in terms of our looking forward to Christmas, the dawn of Jesus’ entrance into human history, or John’s time along the Jordan, heralding the coming of Christ’s work in the world? If we hope for that dawn to come, for Christ to come visit us more powerfully, for the incarnation to be all the more significant, what preparations could we do so that we don’t have to spend those moments upon God’s arrival in our time? Just like the list of things we need to clean and repairs that we hope to make, there are things in my life that I want to clean up. There are roads in my life that need to be straightened out. There are sections that need to be leveled. Stuff I know I need to do but put off for another day because I don’t sense the urgency of Christ’s coming. It’s not like he’s coming next week, I tell myself. So, I will not replace childish ways of thinking with new, more adult constructs, even though my childish ways are leaking all over the place. I will put off repairing that relationship that I’ve known has unfinished business for some time. I will not clean up areas of my life that I know are not hospitable for Christ. Because I can wait, right?
The reality is that I don’t want to waste time that Christ could be using to take our relationship deeper. I don’t want to miss out on God’s insight for my life and my living because my toilet scrubbing distracted me. I want to be ready for what God has for me. Preparation creates that readiness, and helps my walk with God to be more efficient because we don't have to keep going over the same issues time after time.
Jesus spoke of the need to be ready in multiple parables. The ones who were prepared enjoyed the reward it brings, while those who disregarded such things were left severely wanting.
What do you know you need to be doing right now so that you won’t waste time when Christ comes calling?
Preparation communicates respect. My in-laws would certainly be gracious even if we didn’t prepare our home for their arrival, especially if their visit was prompted by an urgent situation. This trip, however, has been long in the making, and we want to communicate to them love and respect. When we make sure everything is clean and working properly to the best of our ability, when we buy special food and plan fun trips for their time with us, it communicates our love and respect to them. We value them, which shows in our preparation for their coming.
Similarly, when we take time to prepare ourselves for God’s coming into our lives, we communicate love and respect. When we take pause in anticipation for God’s coming and consider what needs replacing, repairing and refreshing in our lives, we are saying that we love and respect God as evidenced in our preparation. Would God be gracious if we didn’t? Of course. Sometimes God comes into our lives in urgent situations when no preparation has been made, and God works hard to help replace what’s dead, repair what’s broken and refresh and restore wherever needed. When we are looking forward to God’s moving into our lives, however, why would we want to communicate anything except that we look forward to God’s moving in our lives with great anticipation – and preparation?
As a way of communicating love and respect to God, what replacing, repairing, and refreshing do you want to pursue in anticipation of God’s visit on your life?
Preparation changes us. Because I look forward to Lee and Carolyn’s coming, preparing for their visit may be physically taxing to a degree, but the bigger reality is that as we prepare, we simply get more excited. As I think about our time with them, my mind begins anticipating good conversation, shared moments, new discoveries, and great memories of the visit of December 2013. My interest and passion increases with my preparation.
So it is with my faith. When I anticipate and prepare for God to show up in my life, I get excited about it, I think about it, and it serves only to increase my hopeful readiness all the more. When we take time to prepare, we are changed. Changed as we replace, repair, and refresh. Changed as we dream about what God might do next in our lives. Changed as we consider what we might do next with God.
In anticipation of the reality that God comes, what are you looking forward to? How is your preparation for God’s coming affecting you?
From darkness into light. That dark and stormy night, by the way, was followed by the dawn of a new day. My son was born incredibly healthy as far as premature babies are measured. Our hearts were enlarged with a new level of love we could not have anticipated – a love only a baby can bring. We were as ready as we could be, and yet discovered quickly how truly unprepared we were as soon as we got home. It was a new day, a new beginning, with new things to think about and new ways to live. It was Christmas on May 19, 1997, and our lives have been better ever since.
This Week’s Prayer (Terra Pennington)
Mighty God,
Our preparer who establishes the way to come,
you have not left us hopeless.
We confess our hearts are cluttered.
We are impatient and distracted.
We fill our ears with the sounds
from a busy world.
We cannot hear you cry out to us:
“A new world is coming,
a new way is coming,
prepare your hearts,
your salvation draws near!”
Help us unclutter
our hearts and minds,
hear you in whirlwind and in whisper.
Change us into advent people,
who wait with great joy,
setting all other things aside
to welcome you into the world.
This Weeks Text | Luke 3:1-6 (New Living Translation)
It was now the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, the Roman emperor. Pontius Pilate was governor over Judea; Herod Antipas was ruler over Galilee; his brother Philip was ruler over Iturea and Traconitis; Lysanias was ruler over Abilene. 2 Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests. At this time a message from God came to John son of Zechariah, who was living in the wilderness. 3 Then John went from place to place on both sides of the Jordan River, preaching that people should be baptized to show that they had repented of their sins and turned to God to be forgiven. 4 Isaiah had spoken of John when he said,
“He is a voice shouting in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!
Clear the road for him!
5 The valleys will be filled,
and the mountains and hills made level.
The curves will be straightened,
and the rough places made smooth.
6 And then all people will see
the salvation sent from God.’”
‘Prepare the way for the Lord’s coming!
Clear the road for him!
5 The valleys will be filled,
and the mountains and hills made level.
The curves will be straightened,
and the rough places made smooth.
6 And then all people will see
the salvation sent from God.’”
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