Preparing a Way

The word for this coming Sunday, The Second Sunday of Advent, seems to be prepare. (Since this Sunday falls on December 6, some parishes may opt for the St. Nicholas readings - but that's another post for another time!)

Five hundred years or so before the birth of Jesus, the people of Israel were tired and worn-out. They had laid up their harps by the waters of Babylon, for how could they sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? They cried out to the Lord, sometimes in anger, sometimes with tears, sometimes with seeds of hope in their hearts. But for a long time nothing happened. By a long time I don’t mean hours or days or months. I mean decades. I mean that a whole generation wondered: “What will become of us? Will we ever go home again? Do we have a future?”

And then a voice cries out, the voice of a prophet from Jerusalem:

                   In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD,
                       Make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Prepare the way! That time of preparation marked a new beginning. It still would not be easy or instantaneous, but there is something about taking that first step in a long journey that gives you faith that maybe, just maybe, something new will happen. With Isaiah’s pronouncement a page was turned and the work began. The prophet imagines it (by way of God's imagining it) so that the work can begin. Prepare the way!

More than five hundred years later, in the midst of a different kind of exile, the Jewish people were occupied by the Roman Empire. Another voice in another wilderness place breaks the silence when John the Baptizer appears on the scene. He, too, is all about preparing the way of the Lord and making straight a highway in the desert for our God. His words and his life work remind people of the prophets of old and in particular Isaiah’s preparations in the wilderness all those centuries before. Perhaps once again a new day is about to dawn. Prepare ye the way of the Lord…

In both Greek and English this word literally means to “make ready.” So if the word for the day is to prepare, then the question for the day is what needs to be done to help make us ready for Christmas? And not just any Christmas, but this Christmas 2020 - nine months into a global pandemic?

In more normal times, almost thirty-five years into our marriage, Hathy and I have become pretty good at preparing for parties together. We enjoy having friends over and we each take on different tasks in getting ready that have become more defined over time. We each have our routines. Mostly, I cook and she cleans. It's a kind of parallel play. It is toward one end that we learned early on in our marriage: we don't want to spend all of our time in the kitchen when our guests arrive. We invite them over because we want to visit and enjoy their company. So the preparing that comes first is all towards that goal. Even if there are last minute things to do to prepare a meal it is helpful to have everything chopped and diced and measured and to have the table set and so on and so forth. We do that reasonably well, I think and find enjoyment in the whole process leading up to the time together.

On the other hand, every member of my family will tell you I'm a lousy painter because apparently you are supposed to do some prep work before you just open a can of paint and stir and grab a brush. I tend to skip over the prep work. 

Each of us have positive examples of when our preparations have been mindful and productive and “of a piece” with the whole. And I assume, as well, that we all have also had our “learning experiences” from times when our preparations were neglected or disconnected from the goal we had in mind. One can never prepare for all contingencies or surprises, but if you are ready then you can adapt if necessary as events unfold.

So if Advent is a time for preparing, it helps to know what it is exactly that we are preparing for. It helps if Advent leads us to Christmas! To do that, however, we need to peak to the end of the story. (And that's honestly okay, in spite of what the "liturgical police" like to say: Jesus has already come to be among us - we are not required to pretend we don't know where we are headed!)

A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. The main reason that governments register people is so they can either make them into soldiers or tax them. The world hasn’t changed much on that front. But this is a reminder that the story we tell on Christmas Eve is not a “once upon a time” fairy tale; it’s an event that takes place in human history. It's political. It's cultural. It's economic.

Jesus is born in a very specific time and place. That is at the heart of what the Incarnation is all about. The theologians sometimes call it the “scandal of particularity.” It always amuses me when I hear someone say they don’t believe in Jesus. It’s like saying you don’t believe in Abraham Lincoln or Charles Dickens. Jesus definitely existed. The faith question is about who he was and what his life meant and specifically if he was the One; whether or not he was the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. That's the theological question. But that a rabbi from Nazareth lived and died: that's historical. It's not fake news; it's good news! 

In these uncertain days of a presidential transition and a global pandemic, we do well to remember that Advent preparation calls on us to be attentive to the world around us—to specific places and events both globally and locally that make up our unique context in this time and this place. We do not prepare for Christmas by escaping from the challenges of the day: we look at those challenges as opportunities for ministry and as places where we will encounter the living God, if only we know how to look. 

The story on Christmas Eve continues…Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Jesus is not born among the rich and famous in Rome or Jerusalem, but among the poor. If we want to find Jesus then we should begin our search there. Advent preparations might therefore include putting ourselves in places where the most vulnerable members of our society can be found. This is not to suggest that God loves the poor more than the affluent or that if we are rich we should feel guilty. It is to say that we very often discover courage and perseverance and hope among the those whose lives feel very precarious, and only have God to turn to. 

Usually among the more privileged (among whom I count myself) the great social challenge in December is that we tend to look towards those we feel have more than we do and when we do that it is normal to feel envious. This year, however, we could probably all do with a Blue Christmas celebration. Some are hurting more than others, to be sure. But all of us have suffered from a kind of social dislocation and spiritual disorientation. The death count from COVID alone is now at 276,000 with daily rates soaring.

There were shepherds out keeping watch of their flock, when suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace among those whom he favors. But if we are too loud and too frenetic we will miss their songs. So we prepare ourselves by slowing down and being quiet. Most years that seems like an impossible challenge, when there is so much to do, and so many social events to prepare for. I am already grieving the loss of the Christmas Revels (a decades old tradition in our family) and extended gatherings with family and friends and bringing in the new year with our BFFs. This Advent seems to have fewer distractions and while I am not one to sugar-coat that, perhaps there is learning to be had in the midst of it for us. Perhaps there is invitation to transformation in all of that. To prepare differently.

Advent is a season for new beginnings. When we do stop and listen for the songs of angels we hear them singing about peace on earth. You don’t have to be a news junkie to know that we are a long way off from that: violence around the world and in our neighborhoods threatens to destroy us all. I remember an old Simon and Garfunkle recording of “Silent Night” which was juxtaposed with the seven o’clock news that was reporting all of the troubles of the day. We live, still, within that tension, not so different from the days when that decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world must be registered, when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Yet peace on earth really does begin with us. Peace on earth begins when men and women and children say, “here I am Lord, make me a channel of your peace.” Governments don’t create peace. They may get us to cease-fires, which represent a start. There may be better leaders who appeal to our better angels and worse ones who fan the flames of hatred and violence. But peace on earth requires that ordinary people do justice and love mercy and walk humbly with God. As Christians we are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation and people who love one another and who work with people of good will from every tribe and language and people and nation to start beating swords into plowshares.  

This is the work of the Church from generation to generation. This is the work of Advent: to prepare ourselves and the world around us. And not just our hearts, but our minds and our bodies. We get ready for Christmas from head to toe. If the Incarnation means anything at all, it means we have to learn to pray with our bodies and begin to heal the body politic, and the Body of Christ. 

When we make time to prepare the way for these things, we can be assured that we will be prepared for Christmas.