These days leading up to Christmas are easily filled with preparations. Maybe you’re following an Advent devotional and you’re already a few days behind (like we are). Maybe you were hoping to have your tree up and the lights strung, but that just isn’t happening. Maybe you are one of those cookie-baking-extravaganza-types who buys a 25 pound bag of flour and spends a whole day cutting cookies. You might have a Christmas gift list that’s four times bigger than your budget and your wondering how in the world to proceed.
And perhaps you have guests to entertain throughout the holiday season and you’re beginning to see your home with new eyes…suddenly the piles of mail on every surface are insufferable, the leaky toilet needed to be fixed yesterday, the furnace probably should be serviced, the oven must be cleaned out from the last pie that overflowed, you need to stock up on groceries, and pull out fresh linens, and clean those places you’ve been mindfully ignoring because, if you’re anything like me, you just can’t find the time to make it a priority.
These final weeks before Christmas are remind me of a pregnancy phenomenon known as “nesting.” In the weeks before the baby is born, the mother becomes keenly aware of tasks that simply must be done before the arrival her child. This nesting syndrome presents itself differently in every woman. For some it might mean readying the nursery, painting the walls, taking tags off of gifts, and washing every tiny garment before folding them and placing in pristine piles ready to be worn. For others it means cleaning every cabinet in the kitchen, because that should have been done ages ago. Just a few months ago, as Junia’s due date loomed, I did very little to prepare for the actual baby. My nesting looked like clearing out the garage and donating truckloads of excess to Goodwill. I then scrubbed the garage floor for pete’s sake. It was weird, but for me, it needed to be done.
In this season of Advent, the theme is preparation. But preparing for what? And preparing how?
On this second Sunday of Advent, the invitation is to prepare + repent. To make space for the arrival of Jesus…to “let every heart prepare him room” and we prepare for the coming of Jesus by repentance.
Our Scripture texts today are rather weird and frankly uncomfortable. John the Baptist (in Luke 3) was proclaiming “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” to all who would listen. And the prophet Malachi’s message isn’t much different. Malachi describes the impending arrival of the Lord of hosts and how we must go through a refining purification process up before we stand before Him. These two passages aren’t just calling hardened-criminal-types to repentance. John the Baptist and Prophet Malachi are inviting us to repentance. In fact, Malachi’s prophecy was aimed at the elite religious leaders, the Levites. There is no escaping the need to repent in order to make space for the coming of the Lord.
Repentance is more than offering a simple, “I’m sorry.” True repentance means to “change one’s mind, to turn around, to reorient oneself.” This kind of repentance is never easy. It requires a long internal look at what’s really going on within us. Then, as we come face to face with our truest self, rather than burying the embarrassing truth under layers of denial, we bring our real self out into the daylight, and we let Jesus show us a new way of life, a completely new way of thinking.
I think this kind of true repentance is similar to the way we go about preparing our homes for guests or for the arrival of a new baby. We begin by looking at our room (or our spirits) with new eyes? “Ohhhhh, THIS is what it actually looks like!” Suddenly the neglected areas come shouting to the forefront, and we’re wondering how in the world we ignored the problems and the messes for so long.
It’s difficult to see ourselves for who we truly are…because we live with ourselves. We are so used to thinking and acting in a certain way, we don’t stop to examine our thinking and acting. So what if, in this Advent season of repentance and preparation, we stopped living on autopilot? What if we sat down with Jesus and asked him to show us our true selves, to expose the things we’ve hidden or the things we simply haven’t known about ourselves. And what if we repented? I mean, really repented. Like instead of just throwing the piles of clutter into a closet, we went through every piece of paper and filed it or completed the work or tossed it in the trash…actually took care of the mess? … inviting Jesus to help completely change our mindset, to “renew our minds,” to give us a brand new way of thinking and acting?
I can speak with confidence to the pain and freedom of this process. I feel like I’ve been in a season of life where I was finally ready to let Jesus show me my true self, to expose to me some the ways I had been living selfishly and somehow convinced myself I was good and generous. It’s shocking to see yourself in a new light…startling…devastating, even. But Jesus is gentle, and more than anything He wants to see us made whole and holy. So in my own experience, I can tell you Jesus is loving and his timing is spot-on. He doesn’t show me the hard things until He knows I’m able to face them with grace instead of guilt. And in those moments, I can look upon the gross-ness that’s been dredged to the surface of my life, and then I can look at Jesus and say, “Ok I’m ready to let go of that. I’m ready to move forward and think and act differently. Will you help me?”
I’m telling you, friends, after I got over the shock of “this is who I really am?!” I was ready for Jesus to help me create a new path. I was ready to change and go in a new direction. True repentance, the change-your-mind-and-never-going-in-that-direction-again kind of repentance, brings freedom.
And here’s the thing…the repentance is just the beginning. Repentance is our first step in joining Jesus in his work of healing the world, in bringing his kingdom to earth as it is in heaven. Repentance is our healing. It may sound painful and punitive, much like this refining process Malachi talks about. Verse 2 “For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.” Having the impurities boiled off and being buffed until we shine is not super fun, but God’s desire is not to destroy us or even punish us. God is bringing us wholeness and making us holy. God is inviting us to be with Him and to join him in his work. Because when we forge a new path, a new way of thinking with repentance, we can then begin to invite others to join us in the journey toward wholeness and holiness.
Jumping back to Malachi’s prophecy for a minute…You know his words were intended for the Levites – the priests of the Jewish people? The Levites served as guides, leading the people to God. They were being called to repent, not out of punishment, but out of an invitation to re-join God in his work of bringing people to Him. Well, I’m wondering if you might be able to recall a month when we were reading from Hebrews week after week and learning how we are priests with Jesus? This call to repentance is for us, then. When we repent, we modern-day priests with Jesus, we can serve as guides to all those who are not yet following Jesus. We are the way that our families and neighbors and community will see what it’s like to be healed and made whole by God. We are their glimpse of God’s kingdom breaking through. We are the go-betweens, the messengers, we are John the Baptists to our circle of influence.
Now John the Baptist was, quite frankly, a weirdo. I’m not saying we need to be weirdos. But he was a weirdo-prophet who ended up having it exactly right. He was a “nobody,” essentially a monk who had lived his whole life alone with God in the desert, eating bugs dipped in honey. He had no political power. He had no religious power. Aside from the solitary lifestyle, he was basically a regular guy. But isn’t that us? We might not have any social power… we don’t have a seat around the table in Washington, or a voice in Lansing or even a “say” at school board meetings. But what if Jesus is wanting us to be the ones to invite others to His Table, to His Church, to his healing and wholeness. What if we’re the ones who get to invite our cousin or our neighbor or our coworker to join us in being redeemed and restored? We are the go-betweens, the ones to extend invitation. Now…when it comes down to talking with someone about this Jesus-healing-stuff for the first time, you might actually feel a little bit like a weirdo-John-the-Baptist-type, but just press through the awkwardness…because I’m telling you, if we’re willing to do what Jesus is asking of us, God’s kingdom is breaking through.
Sohat is Jesus asking of you today? What is Jesus inviting you to repent of? What is he inviting you to turn towards? How is Jesus inviting you to partake in the wholeness and healing?
Lord, drive me deep, now, to face myself so I may see
Ted Loder, Guerillas of Grace
my capacity to deceive and willingness to be deceived,
my loving of things and using of people,
my readiness to criticize and reluctance to create,
my clamor for privilege and silence at injustice,
my seeking for security and forsaking the kingdom.
Lord, grant me your peace…
and make me open and present to other people and your kingdom.
As we turn to the Table of Jesus, allow him to show you your truest self, to expose the malfunctioning or misshaped spaces within you, to help you forge a new path and a new function, to become a more holy shape. Allow Jesus to offer you comfort and healing and wholeness at His Table.
And as you go, may you live into the healing and wholeness received at Jesus’ Table, and may you extend an invitation to others to join us in being made holy and whole.
