"Preparing for What?"

Matthew 3:1-12

John W. Wurster

December 5, 2004

I hate to bring this up. I'd just as soon not point it out. I don’t really want to bother you. After all, it's December now and Christmas is less than three weeks away. And the church is pretty and the decorations are nice. We've got cows and sheep showing up in our Bethlehem scene, and the main characters will soon be making their entrance. The snowman sweaters and the Rudolph ties are starting to appear. We’ve made our lists and checked them twice, added some more to them, checked again, put in a few more things. The lists are long, but we’re working on them, getting through all the stuff yet again. There’s lots to do, but we’ll make it. Some deep breaths, a few clenched jaws, yes, but we’ll get there. Cards, gifts, parties. We’re getting ready. Preparation, right? That’s what advent is all about, right? Getting ready for Christmas. Santa Claus and reindeer and the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. We’re getting ready for Christmas, getting prepared.

"Prepare." It’s in the Bible, right? It’s even on the lips of John the Baptist.

Yes, it is. And that’s what I need to bring up. The preparation John is talking about really has nothing to do with putting up a tree or turning out another batch cookies. Advent really has nothing to do with the jolly old elf with a broad face and a little round belly that shakes when he laughs like a bowl full of jelly. Advent is not just about getting ready for a baby born long ago. Advent is about preparing for Christ who will come again, triumphantly and decisively at the close of the age. And Ad is about being ready for the Christ who comes among us even now in ways we will miss if not paying attention.

The message of John the Baptist is about preparing to meet Jesus.

The four New Testament gospels don’t agree where Jesus was born or when he was born or who was there when it happened. Ask Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John the basic who, what, when, where, how, and why questions on the birth of Jesus and the four of them won’t answer the same way on any one of them. However, all four of them explain that before the ministry of Jesus begins, there is someone named John preparing the way. Before Jesus calls a disciple, blesses a child, preaches a sermon, heals the sick, calms the storm, raises the dead, or does much of anything else in the gospels, there is John, a voice crying in the wilderness, "Prepare way of Lord." Four gospels, four appearances by John, which is three more than the wise men and the shepherds get, two more than either Mary or Joseph get, and four more appearances than are made by that much imagined, but unattested innkeeper in Bethlehem.

Read the Bible, and it becomes plain in a hurry that we can’t really get to Jesus until we hear from John. If we’re just spending days getting ready for Santa, if we’re just plowing through our lists, then what John says probably makes no difference. But if we’re preparing for Jesus, looking, yearning, aching for a sign of God’s presence, then what John has to say is crucial.

John speaks with the conviction that the kingdom of heaven is near. Not far off, not long ago, not way out there, but close, here, now. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. God is among us. Are we prepared for that? We can be. According to John, our preparation begins with repentance. "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Repent. Turn around. Let go. Come back. Release. Relinquish. Recommit. Return.

We have two baptisms today and we will also be inviting other new members to reaffirm their baptismal vows. We will ask them all, "Do you turn from ways of sin?" We could just as easily ask them, "Do you repent?" The second question is "Do you turn to Jesus Christ?" You see the order? We repent, turn around, and then we meet Jesus. Repentance makes us ready for Jesus.

While we could talk for a good while about the form our repentance could take -- bad habits, destructive behaviors, a grudge, a hurt, a loss, a faulty sense of self are all things we might do well to turn away from --I want to offer three possibilities for the season before us.

First, let us repent from the idea that Christmas is something we make happen. Christmas is about what God has done. We should celebrate that and respond to that. But our efforts cannot replace that. God has taken on our flesh and shared our life. That’s Christmas. It’s all God’s doing. It’s all God’s idea. We give gifts because of what God has given us. We string lights because of light that has come into world in Jesus. We get together and enjoy each other’s company because God has sought our company and invited us to eat and drink in presence of J. It’s all G’s idea. Let go of belief that Christmas is something we make happen. Repent!

Secondly, let us repent of our indifference to what G is seeking to do in the world. Let us relinquish the notion that the gospel is simple endorsement of 21^st century American culture and values. God is often acting against popular assumptions and practices. Rather than conform to world, gospel seeks to transform it – and us. We’ve been reading these powerful passage from Isaiah which poetically disclose the essential biblical values of righteousness and faithfulness and a peace so deep that the wolf and the lamb will lie down together. In Christ, the Bible says, God is reconciling the whole world and inviting us to be a part of that crucial work. A voice against violence and war, another angel on the tree in the entryway, a prayer for those persecuted and oppressed, a donation for ministries of compassion and care, a commit to righteousness and faithfulness in our own lives. These are the fruits of repentance. This is how we prepare our lives for Jesus.

Finally, let us repent of concept that religion is about safety, sameness, that somehow religion inoculates us from innovation and creativity and risk and prevents us from ever being touched or changed. As we move through routines of season, which though spec in some sense, nonetheless can also feel mundane and stale, it’s easy to transfer that mundane and stale feeling to God. "Domesticated religion" we might call it, a religion where everything is known and predictable. It may be dull, but it’s comfortable, gives us time to concentrate on our lists.

The most religious people in this text today are the Pharisees and Sadducees. They are the ones whom John singles us out for misplaced loyalty, misshaped faith. Pious and adherent, they are called a brood of vipers nonetheless. Maybe in their religious zeal they squeezed out any room for God. They get all the rules right. But God is beyond the rules and the conventions and the categories. Ours is a powerful God who cannot be tamed. So repent from the idea that we have God all figured out. It’s bad religion.

Annie Dillard has it right when she observes, "Why do we people in churches seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute?" . . . Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews" (Teaching a Stone to Talk 40).

Only a daring God, creative and innovative and powerful, would take human form. There is nothing mundane or stale or predictable about that. If God would show up in a manger in Bethlehem, is there any place God will not go? Don’t let our religiousness deceive us. The kingdom of heaven is at hand. God is close. In a smile, a fragrance, a snowflake, a laugh, a tear, a song, a word, and even in silence, God is close.

In getting ready for Christmas, it is easy to overlook Christ. Repent. Turn around. See what is at hand.

I’ll let you go back to your lists. But keep your helmet nearby.