God is in the process of perfecting his work.... 2nd sunday advent C 2018

How does God prepare us for his coming, how does God prepare you for Christmas?

In the gospel all ears were on Tiberius Caesar, on Pontius Pilate, on Herod and Philip and Lysanias – the 3 powerful persons of the region, and all eyes were focused on the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, the high priests. They were the who’s who of Israel. After all these were the people who built the highways, who leveled the mountains and hills, and made the going smooth for the nation and the lives of the people prosperous. 

However, our gospel is trying to redirect our attention.  Luke tells us that the most important people may be those we don’t immediately notice, in places we may not care about, saying things not as exciting as others would.  Here is one – his name is John the Baptist, son of a low-ranking priest, wearing clothes made of coarse camel hair. And yet he may be the real highway maker, one who will make level the mountains and valleys of our lives.  One who will straighten our crooked paths to make way for the Lord.  

Many times, though we may not notice them, God sends people, events and situation that do what John the Baptist is doing.  They level the mountains of our pride and straighten our crooked paths to prepare a highway for our God. They may be commonplace and even unlikely.  But we should pay attention to them nevertheless.

Yesterday we prepared the rectory’s Christmas tree.  It was my first experience of helping decorate a real Christmas tree.  Do you know what I found out?  It is not how a Christmas tree should be or at least the Christmas tree I was used to - not as plump, not as proportioned, not as green, not as balanced, not as straight. Why?  Because it is real.  Only the plastic ones are as perfect as I would have wanted them to be.  Many times our expectations are not really real, and I think that’s one valley we need to fill up, in your relationship with your children, with your spouses and with our community.  In our first reading it is said the splendor of glory is from God, the cloak of justice is from the Lord.  Only God can make things perfect, only God can make a world that is truly just - not me, not you. Of course we will do our very best, we will work for it, yes. But at the moment if you see something imperfect, it’s because it is real.

St Paul says that in everything we must give thanks.  Not just in good things but in everything, good and bad, because nothing is wasted in the work of God.  Even in our trials and difficulties we give thanks, for in God even our darkness are like the depths of the earth that turns carbon into diamonds – nothing is wasted. God is in the process of perfecting his work, St. Paul says, until the good he began in us will be made complete.  This is what advent is teaching us.  We are constantly being built up into the person God wants us to become.  Mountains have to be levelled and valleys have to be filled and crooked paths have to be made straight.

And so we end with Paul’s prayer for all of us in our second reading – May our love increase ever more and more, to discern what is of value, so that we may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.