Isaiah 40:1-5, 9-11
2 Peter 3:8-14
Mark 1:1-8
Are you prepared for Christmas? I know that’s a loaded question this time of
year.
The word “prepare” is the one word that pops
to mind when reflecting on this weekend’s readings. Our Church calls us to spiritually
prepare for the birth of the Christ child -- as we wait expectant yet hopeful.
Our spiritual preparation requires a healthy
dose of humility if it is to be successful this Advent season.
I read something beautiful in Morning Prayer
this past week. It gets to the heart of this weekend’s readings. In the
intercessory prayers of Lauds (or Morning Prayer) I read the following:
“Prepare
a path in our hearts for the coming of (Christ)…
Bring low the mountains of our
pride, and fill up the valleys of our weakness.”
In other words, we all probably have some
work to do to prepare for Christmas. And this preparation has nothing to do
with the Christmas shopping, or other Holiday to-do list.
Perhaps the best way to understand how God
wants us to prepare for what’s to come is to be like first-time parents awaiting
the birth of their own first born child.
No doubt Mary and Joseph, and John the
Baptist’s parents Elizabeth and Zechariah all experienced this preparation and waiting,
expectant yet hopeful.
I’m reminded of the Christmas 1990. My wife Mary and I were expecting our first
child, with a due date one week before Christmas.
We’d moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, earlier
in the year for a job managing a radio station. Mary was less than enthusiastic
about our time spent living in the South. She was a real trooper for leaving
family and friends behind to go to a place unknown to have our first child.
In the months leading up to December, we did
all the things first time parents do to prepare for the blessed event.
We prepared a bedroom for the baby. We
prepared the car to be able to transport the baby. We prepared for child birth
with Lamaze classes. We prepared to be Christian parents by taking baptism
classes at our local parish. We prepared to have family come to visit once the
baby was born.
We were all consumed with preparation as we
waited expectant yet hopeful of the big change coming to our lives.
And shouldn’t we all be spiritually preparing
for the big change coming to our lives this Christmas?
If we listen to the cry of John the Baptist,
we’re all called to “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his path.”
We’re about to celebrate the
greatest event of all human history, the birth of Jesus. Our hearts need to ready
to meet the Christ child.
On our due date, my wife thought she
was going into labor and called me home from work. She was so happy and had big
smile on her face as we drove to see her doctor. She was convinced the time was
now!
Dr. Eddie
walked into the exam room, took one look at my wife’s beaming smile, and said, “Mary,
you’re smiling. You’re not in labor yet. If you were, you wouldn’t be smiling.”
So, we
returned home to wait expectant yet hopeful, and we prepared some more.
I had to
work on Christmas morning.
As the shift
was coming to an end, the phone rang.
It was Mary
calling (with distress in her voice) to say “I’ve been in pain all morning.
Please come home quickly.”
So, I jumped
in the car and headed home.
When I got
there, the smile was gone.
Yep, we were
now officially in labor. But
contractions were still 10-to-12-minutes apart and we were told to wait until
contractions were five-minutes apart before going to the hospital.
So, we spent
Christmas Day 1990, all by ourselves, far away from family and friends,
experiencing child birth for the very first time. We were waiting expectant yet
hopeful, albeit a little stressed that Christmas day.
The
truth is nothing can truly prepare us for such a blessed event. We did all we
could to prepare. But the rest was left to the grace of God.
In fact, I remember thinking
all through the month of December, “I’m not ready to be a father!” But the baby
was finally ready to come into this world.
Mary gave birth to our first
born son Sean Michael Kelly 30 hours after going into labor. The bouncing baby
boy arrived one day after Christmas 1990, on the Feast of St. Stephen, first
Christian martyr and a deacon.
For a
29-year-old struggling with his faith, the experience helped seal the deal
between God and me. After witnessing a miracle, faith was real in ways it had
never had been before. I had never felt love like that before.
We’d experienced a true God
moment together. Our lives would be forever changed.
And this is
what God is calling us to do as we prepare the way of the Lord this Christmas.
Make paths straight, fill in every valley and make low every mountain and hill.
Everything
in our world had changed with one miracle: the birth of a child.
And so, our story is God’s
story for us all.
We are called by John the
Baptist to prepare a way for the Lord in our hearts and change everything as we
orient our lives to Christ.
As we baptized our son one
week later, with family finally in town, our pastor Monsignor Gaston Herbert
reminded me of something stupid he heard me say on the radio shortly after the
baby was born.
When asked by a fellow radio host on
the air, “What was the experience like, DK?”
Yours truly said the following fateful words, (and I quote) “It was fun
and easy.”
Monsignor Herbert howled as
he repeated my careless words, and then baptized our first child.
The people living in the
time of Mark’s Gospel were awaiting the second coming of our savior Jesus
Christ. They were waiting expectant yet hopeful. Today we’re reading the very
beginning of Mark’s Gospel.
Bible
scholars agree. Mark’s was the first written Gospel, probably around 65 AD.
This was nearly a generation after the death of Christ. It’s believed Mark’s
community lived in Rome.
This early Christian
community faced persecutions, betrayals, denials and many conflicts. Mark’s
Gospel helped keep this community focused on the expected and hopeful Second
Coming of Jesus. Many at this time believed the generation that witnessed Jesus
in the flesh would not completely pass away without Jesus coming again.
The action in Mark’s Gospel
is fast-paced and designed to get all its readers caught up in the drama, and begin
to see ourselves as a continuation of the story of Jesus Christ.
The belief was Jesus is
returning soon. So, prepare. And so, we, too, are called to prepare while
we wait expectant yet hopeful.
I’m reminded of a beautiful
lyric in an Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith Christmas song called “Almost
There:”
“You’re almost where
the journey ends
Where death will die
and life begins
The answered prayer,
Emmanuel
You’re almost there.”
My sisters and brothers, the Lord is coming soon!
Let us prepare our hearts to
welcome a child who will change our world forever.
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