Mark 1:1-8
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,
‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;
the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” .
John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with* water; but he will baptize you with* the Holy Spirit.’
I like to be prepared. In the fourth grade, a friend had a birthday party at table tennis hall. So to prepare, I bought my own paddle, practiced at home as much as I could, and showed up to that party ready to take names (which in fact I did). If guests are coming over, the baseboards of my house have to be clean. I will spend a good hour on my knees wiping to make sure the dog hair and baby puff crumbs are gone. In college, I would stay up for hours studying for the smallest quiz. I think its something I’ve inherited from my mom (thanks mother), but it’s also my own way of making me feel like I am in control, like everything will be okay, like I can determine how things are going to turn out.
Preparation is obviously helpful and necessary; But, what I think lurks behind our preparation, or practice, or training of any kind, is this notion or feeling that I can depend wholly on myself, because I’m prepared. I don’t need anyone or anything else. I control how things will go for me. And when we think or act that way, what we’ve done without even recognizing it often is make ourselves into an idol, trusting myself and my preparation more than anything else, like it can save me, whatever comes my way. I become my own god; a savior of my own doing.
As Martin Luther puts it, “Anything on which your heart relies and depends, I say, that is really your God”.
But it doesn’t take many trips around the sun to learn that no matter how much one has prepared in life, things do always go as one hopes. There are times when we still mess up; when we do get it right; times when no matter how hard we try, we can’t control what happens.
No matter how many books you read or podcasts you listen to, I’ve learned quickly as a parent that you make many mistakes just in the course of a day: like getting angry when your son swings his foot wildly during a diaper change, getting poop all over the changing table.
Or we read a book, a devotional, a piece of Scripture instructing us, preparing us to love our neighbors, yet from behind the safety and distance of a screen we say nasty, hurtful things about those libs or the right wingers or those trans people.
And no amount of preparation would have readied the nearly two million people in Gaza who are now displaced with virtually no place to turn that isn't already bombed out or could be.
We talk and hear a lot about how Advent is a season of preparation. We count down with calendars, put up trees, and decorate our homes. But it seems John the Baptist called for a different kind of preparation.
The Gospel of Mark begins with this strange man, wearing even stranger clothes, shouting in the wilderness: “prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight”. I wonder if when the people heard this, they were caught off guard. Perhaps they thought, “we weren’t ready for this; we haven’t prepared for the Messiah to come now. How does one even prepare for the Messiah?”
John the Baptist gave them a way, telling people “here’s how you prepare: confess your sins, receive forgiveness, and repent of your ways”. John offered the people a baptism of repentance;
a chance to admit their shortcomings, be made clean in the Jordan river, and walk away changed. And people came in droves; people from the cities, from the countryside, from all over to confess, be forgiven and repent. And you know who came to John in the wilderness to be baptized? It wasn’t the ones who felt in control and thought everything was fine. Not the ones who were self-determinate and well prepared.
It was the ones who messed up, who had made mistakes and failed. It was the ones who tried to be their own god, failed, and realized their need for a savior. And doing all of this in the wilderness was no accident. Afterall, it was in the wilderness where the Israelites were instructed not to prepare for the next day, but gather only enough manna to eat that very day, making them see their need and trust that God will provide and not themselves.
Advent preparation for us then is also confession, forgiveness, and repentance. It’s confessing that we too aren’t prepared for God to come among us and do what God has planned.
It’s recognizing that the world around us is a mess and so am I. And that no matter how hard we may try to get things in order, to make the paths straight, and to fix the brokenness both in and around us, we simply can’t. Our preparation or training will always fall short. There will always be problems we can’t solve, situations we can’t control, and yet we will still try to depend on ourselves and no one else.
In response, John the Baptist says repent; give up all that you're holding onto: the fear of failure, the need to be perfect, the idea that you can rely solely on yourself and no one else. I hope you hear this invitation of repentance as good news. Because repenting isn’t about remorse or guilt, but about being freed from all that weight and expectation you put on yourself.
Once we’ve done that, we can see the gift that God gives us, namely a Messiah, for what and who he really is. We’re given a savior so that we don’t have to be our own, because we can’t be.
A savior who takes away all that sin and expectation and through the Holy Spirit, gives us faith to trust in God alone. Instead of trusting in ourselves, in our preparation (or our money or privilege or anything else) in giving us Jesus,
it’s as if God says to us, “Whatever good thing you lack, look to Jesus for it and seek it from him, and whenever things don’t go as you hoped, crawl and cling to me. I, myself, will give you what you need and help you… Only do not let your heart cling to or rest in anyone else, including yourself”.
Above all, Advent preparation is acknowledging that we need a savior; we need God here and now, at work in us and in the world. I’m not saying we shouldn’t put out the nativity and decorate the tree. Those are meaningful traditions no doubt. But preparing for Christmas, for Christ’s coming, is first and foremost acknowledging the need for his coming. Afterall, what good is Christmas if we don’t see the need for a savior?
A friend in seminary said to me, “things must not be too bad here if God came down to live” to which I said, “or things were just so absolutely terrible that God had no other choice. God had to come”. Yet, to this I would add that God also desired to dwell among us, to be Emmanuel, God with us. In abounding love, God came because despite our preparation and our attempts to be our own god, things didn’t go the way we hoped… for ourselves, for others, for the world around us.
But thats the good news in all of this. That the Messiah has come, is coming again, and that the Messiah isn’t you. You can’t save yourself nor the world, no matter how well you think you’ve prepared or how hard you try. Only God can do that and will do that, in God’s own timing.
Until then, we prepare for Jesus' advent by confessing our sins, receiving forgiveness, and giving up our idolatry; because, ready or not, here he comes. Amen.
