Prepare Him Room

Prepare Him Room (December 14, 2003)

"Bear fruits worthy of repentance." Luke 3:8

One night when I was in Texas recently my brother and I took “Lucky” out for his walk. Travis named him “Lucky”, an English Boxer, because, he said, this dog was lucky to be in this house, and how right he was about that. We passed a woman who was outside her home putting up the Christmas lights. Fred called out a cheery “Evening!”. The woman barely turned to look at him, grunted something, and turned back to her Christmas labor.

Perhaps if she had had some help she would have felt cheerier, but I couldn't help thinking she wasn't quite in “the Christmas spirit.” Or maybe I'm wrong and this is the Christmas spirit these days, namely, just let me get this through this thing, get these lights up, attend to all the other chores, and hope for a minimum of disasters.

How exactly to go about “preparing Him room”, as the carol says, when so much else demands our attention? Can't go to church, some say, too many things to do for Christmas.

Every Advent the church urges us to put aside what we are doing and consider the John the Baptist. He is the “voice crying in the wilderness”. And he asks us to prepare a place for the One coming after him. Make straight a path.

As a prophet, of course, his message was one of judgment. Only if we know we need a Savior can we truly prepare our hearts for him. The only way John knew to proclaim the coming of the Messiah was to tell people they needed one and that meant a turning around, which is what the word repentance means.

One translation of the Beatitudes translates “poor in spirit” as “How blest are those who know their need of God.” Many don't know their need, so they miss it. But it is a blessing in the truest sense to know your need of God.

For John, those who thought they could “get by” just by being part of the covenant community were sadly mistaken. God could raise up his own community out of the stones of the ground if He wished. The Messiah comes not to those who have the right heritage --- who say they have Abraham for their father, or John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or George Washington -- but to those whose hearts are turned to him and who show their repentance in their deeds.

In John's day this was a message for those who thought they had a divine connection as God's chosen people. These temptations are still around. There's a temptation for Americans to think of ourselves as God's new chosen people. It manifests itself in attitudes which suggest we have a right to run the world, to take a huge portion of its natural resources, to punish those who don't go along with us when we make war, to buy for ourselves gas guzzling Hummer tanks as if nobody had ever heard of the “green revolution”, to engage in ostentatious displays of wealth. If we as a nation are going to prepare a place for him we better first listen to whatever voices in the wilderness are calling us to get our perspective right. There's no “most favored nation” clause in God's kingdom.

John's message was emphatically not “God is on our side”. It was, rather, God comes to those, and only those, who truly know their need for him.

John's message wasn't simply ranting and raving about people's sins. When he talks about bearing fruits of repentance he talks in very practical terms. Share with the needy, don't defraud anyone, treat people equitably and fairly. These are always good words of advice, but especially in Advent. Note: he is not just talking about the rich when he urges them to share. Even the poor usually had two tunics, and even they should share with those who have none.

While the super rich often get the most publicity for their generosity, sociologists say that in fact in our country medium and lower income people are far more generous. Perhaps it is because they remember better, or are more familiar with, the situation of those who are most hurting and are most conscious of their blessings.

Despite John the Baptist's image as a harsh preacher, his advice to the tax collectors and the soldiers is not harsh at all. In fact, he is much more “liberal”, if we can use that word, than the Pharisees. The Pharisees believed collecting taxes was immoral. (Perhaps you've agreed with them!) But John does not agree with that view, nor did Jesus. Just don't collect more than you should, says John, (remember the story of Zaechaeus). This is hardly revolutionary. Nor is it judgmentally harsh. Similarly, to the soldiers, who were representatives of an occupying power and thus were hated by virtually everyone, he counsels them not to extort money, even though they hardly earned a living wage and could perhaps have been forgiven for demanding a little bakhsheesh. He does not tell them to quit being soldiers.

John's message is one of the first practical messages of the Christian social gospel. It also clearly connects Christian faith on Sunday with what we do the other days of the week. Especially in Advent we need to say again there is no true Christian faith which is simply personal and individual. True Christian faith involves what is happening in our world and especially to those who are hurting the most in our world.

We hear echoes of it in the hymns we sing at Advent: “O come, desire of nations bind all peoples in one heart and mind, bid envy strife, and discord cease; fill the whole world with heaven's peace.”

“Christ brings God's rule, O Zion, He comes from heaven above. His rule is peace and freedom, and justice, truth and love….”

“Come, Thou long-expected Jesus, born to set Thy people free, from our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in Thee….”

And the hymn we are about to sing: “He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness, and wonders of His love…”

I never feel I have properly prepared for Christmas until I have watched “A Christmas Carol” – the one with Alistair Sims as Ebenezer Scrooge made over 50 years ago, which is the only “Christmas Carol” to watch. Dickens, I think, captured the heart of the season with his story and this old black and white movie captures the heart of Dickens. There's plenty of judgment here, especially of Scrooge's greed. But there's repentance, too, a complete, total turning around, and suddenly after his conversion Scrooge is a changed man, a very generous man, and it said at the end that no one knew better how to keep Christmas than he did.

For me one of the best parts is when the reformed Scrooge comes to the home of his nephew to accept his invitation for Christmas dinner. He utters a heartfelt apology to his nephew's wife for the way he has treated her. One of the very best ways to prepare a place in your heart for the Christ Child is to use this season to make amends.

If there is a relationship which has been frayed or broken, a co-worker or family member with whom you need to be reconciled, the idea of trying to keep Christmas and not doing something about that is a simple contradiction. It can't really be done. We sometimes like to keep old grudges simmering – never up to the boiling point but not turned off either – now is the magical time of year to make a change, or suggest to someone you know, that now is the time to act on your best instincts.

This is the season in which we remember how God's grace came fully into our human life, in the form of a little baby, born in Bethlehem. C. S. Lewis called the incarnation “the Great Invasion”. It's full meaning is open only to the eyes of faith, but there's a penumbra about it, you might say, that sheds its light on all of varying degrees of faith, and even of no faith at all. It is called a magical time precisely because it is a remembrance of a great moment of God's grace, and there's no telling where and how that grace will operate.

But it is clear, especially from John the Baptist, that we can't be open to it if we are filled with pride – either as individuals or as a nation – or if we are unwilling to treat other equitably, or we are greedy. As William Barclay wrote, God will never absolve the person who is content to have too much while others have too little. And God knows there's a lot of that these days.

Sharing, treating people equitably, turning from greed, reaching out in acts of reconciliation – these are the practical fruits of repentance. And these are among the best ways of heeding Charles Wesley's great words, “let every heart prepare him room.”