Last Sunday our Advent message from Mark 13:33 was: “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.” The message this week is a little different. Isaiah (40:3-4) calls us to action: “prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God”! St. Peter tells us to hasten “the coming of the day of the Lord” (2 Pt 3:12). And John the Baptist cries out “REPENT.” “Make straight his paths” (Mark 1:1-8). The action these great prophets call us to is not what we normally think of at this time of the year.
In our secular world, we fill the weeks before Christmas with frenetic activity. Our lives are a frenzy of shopping, attending parties, sending Christmas cards, decorating and other commitments. Just look at our schedule here at Holy Trinity. There is so much to cram in before Christmas! However, this is not the type of action Isaiah meant. Preparing “the way of the Lord,” is not about making sure that Wal-Mart and Macys meet their sales quotas, or that all the Christmas lights are perfect or that the cards get out on time. Isaiah is calling us to make the pathways into our hearts and lives as straight as possible before Jesus gets here. John the Baptist calls us to repent, to change our attitudes, our actions and our words. St. Peter reminds us to “conduct [ourselves] in holiness and devotion.” What we are called to is interior activity.
St. Peter gives us our second set of Advent directions on how to prepare for the coming of Jesus in our second reading, 2 Peter 3:8-14. He reminds us that the world as we know it will disappear. The “heavens will pass away with a mighty roar and the elements will be dissolved by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be found out.” When the end of the world happens, the Lord expects us to conduct ourselves “in holiness and devotion, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God…” St. Peter tells us that “What we are waiting for is the new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.” And, finally, he tells us that while we are waiting, we must do our “best to live blameless and unsullied lives so that he will find [us] at peace.”
And so, on this Second Sunday of Advent, our goal is to find peace in the midst of the frenzy. We are called to look beyond the commercialism of the season, we are called to look into our hearts and to make sure our hearts are prepared for the coming of the Lord.
With tender comfort and transforming power
you come into our midst,
O God of mercy and might.
Make ready a way in the wilderness,
clear a straight path in our hearts,
and form us into a repentant people,
so that the advent of your Son
may find us watchful and eager for the glory he reveals.
We ask this through him whose coming is certain,
whose day draws near:
your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
Amen.
