PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD

Luke 3:1-6

Early December is the season of many preparations: Preparation for the celebration of Christmas and preparation for the celebration of New Year. We are now busy buying presents, decorating trees, planning for where to celebrate Christmas... Advent is about preparation too, but a different sort than that of buying and stocking. We live between the first coming of Jesus when he was born at Bethlehem which I call the historical coming and his Second Coming at the end of time which I call the eschatological coming. But in between these two periods, Advent is also a time for us to understand the daily coming of Jesus Christ in our lives; which I call the spiritual coming.  John the Baptist calls us to prepare for that spiritual coming of Jesus.

            So what sort of preparation do we need to do for this Advent? How is John the Baptist calling us to prepare for Christ’s birth in our lives? Poetically, John uses the image of the road to tell us how to prepare ourselves, to convey the message of repentance during this period of Advent: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths”.  The Advent Season invites us to self-examination leading to a self-reform. Advent is a challenge to repentance. It is a challenge to do something for God.

We celebrate every year this period Advent because the Church wants to remind us always of the coming of Jesus Christ in our everyday life. John’s emphasis in this Gospel of Luke is that we should be vigilant to recognize and welcome the Lord who comes to us without every day in people, places and events we don’t expect to be. If we are preparing for the Lord’s coming by looking up to the sky we are mistaken, Luke today invites us to look around us, to look into the story of our daily lives and recognize the Lord who comes to us in our daily activities.

Look into your life, and find what you can do to prepare. There is a famous hymn of Isaac Watts, entitled: “Joy to the World,” which has the line: “Let every heart prepare him room.” And this is what John the Baptist preached about: a baptism of repentance. “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”.

Advent isn’t only about individual preparation; Christ’s coming affects every valley and mountain. Preparing for Jesus individually is great and all, but what’s the point if the gospel is only about us and our salvation? If the good news of Christmas is that God sends God’s son to show us how to live, to save us and give us eternal life, then it seems like the most selfish thing in the world not to share that good news. Of course, we don’t have to prepare the whole world ourselves. We’re not all called to be missionaries, but we can all prepare for Christ by serving him where we live. There’s plenty of ways to prepare for him. Prepare your heart. Prepare the world. Prepare, for Jesus is coming.