Have you done your winter cleaning yet?
It’s time to prepare
the way of the Lord, we are told in this Sunday’s readings – to ready our
hearts for Jesus’ coming into our lives, coming at Christmas,
coming in the end times, coming to meet us here and now. So perhaps we’d better start with a bit of
cleaning…
The people in exile in the Book of Isaiah don’t have much
reason for hope, yet God is now about to speak
tenderly to them, to remind them that all that God has promised will come –
they have only to prepare the way: Make straight in the wasteland a highway for
our God! For God is about to come
into their lives in a big way: Here comes with power the Lord God! Wait with patience, therefore, but get busy,
clean out any obstacles to his journey into your heart, where, as Psalm 85
promises, kindness and truth shall meet,
justice and peace shall kiss. It is
a hope not yet realized, a promise whose fulfillment we await… And while we wait, we prepare, by
straightening up all that has become messy in our lives, conducting ourselves in holiness and devotion, eager to be found
without spot or blemish, as the author of 2 Peter suggests…
There is so much to do to prepare
a way for the Lord!
For the faithful of Mark’s Gospel, John the Baptist is a means by which some of that cleaning and preparation can take place. John reminds the people of the promise that
is their hope; his call is a call to repentance. His job, too, is to prepare the way, opening hearts to conversion, allowing the Lord to
come triumphantly along the way, the path that has been made straight for him. He
encourages the people – as we are encouraged in Advent – to prepare the way by tearing down the
walls that sin has created in our lives, so that the Lord might come to be born
in us, and through us. Prepare, not just
by waiting, but by doing, by living and loving as fully as you can… so that your hearts are clean, and
open, when the Lord arrives.
This post is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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