Its the season of Advent. Here comes John the Baptist! His call to prepare hits hard here and now. Enjoy! John the Baptist was a wild and woolly man, a bit like Santa, but there the resemblance ends. The trouble with Santa is that he is a distraction. He is good at frightening young children, but not much else. Santa protects us from the hard choices we need to make. The trouble with John the Baptist is the opposite. He tells the truth. He confronts us. He should be out shopping for presents for Uncle Joseph and Aunt Mary, for his cousin Jesus. It’s almost Christmas after all. He should be merry and jolly and stay positive. Instead, John the Baptist tells the truth about cute little babies. They are hard work. Like the children I have in my confirmation class, some of whom lit the Advent candles this morning. Like the 26 year olds in our lives. Like sons and daughters no matter what their age. You thought you were done parenting now that your children are in their twenties, in their thirties, in their forties. Think again! Sons and daughters are cute but they are hard work. Their potential is enormous. They often seem bent on wasting it. John the Baptist tells us the truth about us. We are just like the children in our lives. We are just as unfocused as the average 8th grader. Or the focus we have is not to our benefit and the benefit of those around us. We settle for so little. God wants to give us so much more. We have met the enemy and he is us. The good news is this, according to John the Baptist. Life is about preparing the way for the coming of everything good God would give us. Life is about turning around, turning in the right direction. That is the truth a wild and woolly man offers us on the second Sunday in Advent. I mean, he should have trimmed his beard at least. But there it is. In the wilderness prepare the way. Turn around. Repentance. * * * It’s not easy to stay focused. You have to be waiting and watching to stay focused. You have to prepare for something that is not inside of you, but beyond you. Here comes the judge, says John the Baptist. Here comes the great shepherd of the sheep, who gathers the lambs in his arms. They are the same person. Judgment and salvation, healing and a test, will reveal themselves in a single event. Suffering produces endurance, says Scripture. Endurance produces character, and character produces hope. The best is yet to come. But first you have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. Then you have to turn in the right direction. Not once but many times. Yesterday I took a bunch of 5th and 6th and 7th graders to volunteer at the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry. Each and every one of them is a bundle of energy. Each and every one of them wants someone to talk to. Someone with whom to share their emotional aches and pains. Someone with whom to share their hopes and fears. I don’t believe it is wise to do so except in the context of a project that goes beyond ourselves. So we stocked the shelves at the pantry. We ate together. We gave a pit bull a bath. He almost bit my ear off! A 7th grader, a socially awkward girl I adore but some might consider a challenge, told me during and afterwards several times, “This is so much fun!” I have a theory. What she means is that it is fun to be doing something meaningful and unpredictable with food and fellowship thrown in. We are built to change the world. Our happiness depends on it. Navel-gazing on its own gets old. In my experience, every navel holds about the same quality of dirt and grime and stinky wax. It is better to spend our time preparing the way for the coming of everything good God would give us. Then you will stop thinking about who you are, and start thinking about who you are becoming. You will have turned in the right direction, the road less traveled by, and that will make all the difference. This past week I ordered 350 poinsettias. The ones in church this morning are absolutely beautiful, and they remind us of many people in our lives who mean a lot to us. I ordered 350 poinsettias because of a family I met last year. They are paying for the poinsettias. They will be hand-delivered to all the residents of Evergreen Retirement Community and Parkview Health Center the weekend before Christmas. There is a story behind this. It goes like this. A beautiful girl who grew up in this church and went to North High School headed to California and began a modeling career. She lit up every room she walked into. She turned the heads of everyone she met. But was she happy? You might not be happy if you don’t have someone at your side who loves you and understands you. Carrie found that someone late in life, in her late forties, just a few years ago. She married him and became a great resource to his grown children. She owned and operated a fitness club. Everything had finally come together, and then she got cancer. After a long, heart-breaking battle, she died last year, and we had her funeral. One thing Carrie loved to do was to bring cheer to people one person at a time. She would buy poinsettias before Christmas and deliver them in person to perfect strangers. After her example and in her memory youth with a heart in Oshkosh will do the same in a couple of weeks. Its Carries Cause. Prepare the way for the coming of everything good God would give us, not just us, but the entire world. Turn around. Turn in the right direction. It is hard work but worth it. That is what we are to do according to John the Baptist. In the wilderness, on the frozen tundra, prepare the way. The painting on the right is by Jan Richardson. Visit neverfearthewild.wordpress.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 13:32:22 +0000
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