Get ready! As we come to this second Sunday in Advent it’s time to start getting Christmas preparations underway. In my family, emails are starting to fly around – what are we doing, who’s house, how do we organise presents this year, what about the children? Perhaps cards are being written and posted, meals are being thought through, and perhaps for those very organised people, cooking is already underway, gifts are being bought and wrapped. In other words, we’re starting to prepare.
This week we continue our preparations to meet the Christ-child as we journey towards Bethlehem, towards the one whose coming the prophets predicted. Prepare, get ready are the themes of today’s Gospel reading. In the incarnation of Christ, God broke into our world, an event that’s so full of wonder that we can’t simply sit back and be spectators. The prophets call us to prepare ourselves and to prepare the world for the coming of righteousness and mercy. The Advent promise is that God’s kingdom will come – in us as individuals, in our political, social and economic structures, and in the whole cosmos. The good news is that the God who makes all things new is preparing us for the coming of this kingdom and the bad news is that this isn’t always a very comfortable process.
It’s Advent, Jesus is near. Today we meet John the Baptist, the un-settler, the disturber, the one who calls us all to renewal and transformation. Like the people who gathered at the river Jordan to listen to him, we too must be open to the change of heart, the new direction John calls us to today.
In peace, Mother Lynda