Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
2 Peter 3:8-15a
Mark 1:1-8
So, Advent is about waiting. And last week, I talked about what we're waiting for. During the four weeks of Advent - three weeks now - we're waiting not only for Christmas to come, when we celebrate that the Son of God deigned to come into the world as a vulnerable baby, as one of us, but we're also waiting for the Son of God to come again. We're waiting for that day when Christ will make his unmistakable presence known to the world, when all wrongs will be righted, when the oppressed will be freed, and the marginalized welcome. We're waiting for God to fix the world - for the hungry to all be fed, for the sick to all be healed, for the naked to all be clothed. We're waiting, in short, for the fulfillment of the kingdom of heaven. That's what Advent is about.
But you have to admit, we've been waiting a long time. When Jesus came onto the scene, healing the sick and feeding the hungry, he proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven had come near, that the kingdom of God was at hand. And, indeed, with all the miracles he was working, it really seemed like it. To the people who followed Jesus, every day was a glimpse into the kingdom that was to come. Their faith was shaken a bit when Jesus was ignominiously crucified, but it was restored and strengthened when he was raised from the dead three days later. And during the heady days of the early church, when the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples in Jerusalem during Pentecost and over three thousand people were baptized on the spot, when Peter and John repeated the very same healing miracles that Jesus had, well then it was easy to believe that every day, the kingdom of heaven was coming closer to fulfillment.
But that was two thousand years ago. The Spirit doesn't seem to move so obviously in the world anymore, sometimes it even seems as if every day the kingdom is getting farther away instead of closer. Yes, we still have hope, but the continued delay in Christ's coming again leaves us wondering. Is the day really coming? Is there really a point in our Advent waiting?
It's a concern that the author of the second letter of Peter addresses. His audience is obviously wondering the same thing, and so he (or she) writes, "Do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance." It may have been two thousand years for us, but not for God. We may think God is taking too long about all of this, but not God. You see, while we've been waiting for God to bring all of this about, while we've been wondering what's taking God so long, it turns out that God is actually waiting for us.
You see, it turns out that as impatient as we are for the kingdom of heaven to come, the truth is that we're not ready for it. I know that we've been waiting for a long time, but just because we've been waiting doesn't mean that we've been preparing. Waiting and preparing are not the same thing. It is entirely possible to wait for something without preparing for it. Say, for example, you have a project at work that is due to be finished on a certain date. And so you're waiting for that day to come, when you can hand in your project. But if you haven't prepared for that day - that is, if you've spent your time waiting by surfing the internet or playing solitaire on your computer - then you're not going to be ready when the boss wants your project. But if you've been preparing - that is, if you've spent your time waiting by researching what you need to do and fulfilling all the requirements - then it won't be a problem when the boss comes to see what you've done. You can wait for the deadline without preparing for it. And that's pretty much how the situation is for us when it comes our Advent waiting. Sure, we've been waiting for two thousand years, but we haven't really been preparing.
Which is why, the author of 2 Peter implies, God has delayed in bringing about the promised day. Because God knows that we're not ready. God knows that if the deadline were today we would be judged failures, God knows that our attempts are far from perfect, and so God has granted us an extension on the deadline. Rather than seeing us fail, rather than having to punish us, God is giving us extra time. God is hoping that this extension will give us the time we need to actually prepare for Christ coming again.
So how do we prepare? What is the project God has given us to work on during Advent while we wait for Christ to come again? Well, both Isaiah and John the Baptist make it pretty clear. The project is to "prepare the way of the Lord" by "straightening out" the path that the Lord takes to get to us. In the old days, when the king would go out into the wilderness to visit his people, which wasn't very often, the people would build a straight, flat road, leveling out any bumps and filling in any holes, so that the king would have a smooth journey. Of course, the king could, and would, travel on a rough road if he had to, but why would the people want that? Why not make the journey for the king as quick and as easy as possible? After all, he was giving them the privilege of going to see them, rather than making them come to see him. So of course the people would do whatever they could to make king's journey smooth.
And the same is true of us - we want to make it as easy and smooth as possible for Christ to come to us. Now, straightening out the path for Christ to return to us means, according to John the Baptist, repentance - pure and simple. And if you think about it, that makes a lot of sense. If you imagine that Christ is coming to us along a physical road, it is easy enough to see that our sins and deliberate wrong-doings create potholes and speed-bumps that slow Christ down. They don't stop him, mind you - none of our sins can ever stop Christ from coming to us - but they can seriously slow him down. And so repentance is the way we fill in those potholes and smooth out the speed-bumps. When we repent of the actions we know to be wrong - bad- mouthing co-workers, disrespecting family members, judging those around us - when we turn away from those actions, we are straightening out the road so Christ can get to us sooner. Like I said, Christ will come whether we straighten out or not, but properly preparing the way means Christ's return happens sooner.
Now here's the thing. This is a group effort we're talking about. Our Advent waiting and preparations are personal things, yes, but the end result is not personal. If we're talking about Christ returning to the world, bringing the kingdom of heaven to the world, if we're talking about this on a global scale, which we are, then that means that we're also talking about repenting of our actions on a global scale - and as privileged North Americans, there's a lot of them to repent of. We're talking about straightening out on a global scale. We're talking about turning away from things like over-consumption, abusing the environment, propping up our own consumer lifestyles at the expense of under-paid, poverty stricken workers overseas. The road Christ is taking to come to the whole world is so full of potholes and speed-bumps that it makes the 401 look as smooth as a hockey rink. And so God is looking to us to prepare the way and make the paths straight.
Because doing this hastens the coming of the day of God, as we hear in 2 Peter. The neat trick about all of our Advent repentance and preparation is that not only are we making straight the road, but we're also actually participating in making the kingdom of heaven a reality. When we turn from those actions of ours that abuse others, when we take steps to right the wrongs that we've committed in the world, when we strive to rebuild the relationships between us and our global neighbours that we've broken, when we help heal the sick, feed the hungry, free the oppressed, and welcome the marginalized, then guess what? We are helping to continue the work that Jesus began, to bring about the kingdom of heaven. We are actually making Christ's return smoother and easier than before.
So, with all the preparations that we have to make, it turns out that our Advent waiting is not so long after all. Two thousand years doesn't seem to have been nearly long enough for us to prepare properly for Christ's return. How blessed we are, then, that God is in fact waiting for us to complete our preparations before bringing about that day. Nevertheless, while this is work we can begin, it is not work that we can finish. We can't bring about the fullness of the kingdom of heaven on our own, and so we cry out, with Advent repentance and expectation in our hearts, "Come, Lord Jesus, come!" Amen.
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