I was recently stuck in a traffic jam on a major city highway and while traffic had slowed to a halt, I noticed that I was in the middle of a major road expansion project which has become common in Texas. But this time it occurred to me that this new passageway that was under construction was literally being designed to relieve the traffic jam in which I was stuck. The new road being built would serve as an overpass adding more lanes to the current road that could no longer accommodate what traffic on that road had become. To put it another way, this road was encouragement that preparations were being made to ensure that smoother traveling was on the way.
One of the common passages of scripture used for Advent, quoted by John the Baptist was a call from Old Testament prophecy to “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” It suggests that along with our waiting, expecting, and hoping for Christ’s arrival, we can participate in ensuring that we and our world around us are not so stuck in the heaviness and busyness of life that we are hindered from fully receiving the transforming presence of Christ in our lives. A closer reading of how John responds to this call in chapter 3 of Luke’s gospel could suggest that he helped to prepare the Lord’s way by simply beginning the work of ministry through sharing the Good news of Jesus Christ and inviting people into relationship with him. His ministry started out as pretty raw and unbridled, it was counter to the norms of the time, it wasn’t refined by millennia of customary practices, and it probably wasn’t always understood. He simply met people where they were, and offered them a relationship with God’s Messiah in his own way.
It further occurs to me that this is what you do everyday through the examples of your lives of faith, and and through your commitment to the ministries of the church. You represent and proclaim the good news that Christ can offer healing, renewal, and hope despite the often challenging journey of life. The late religious writer, Henry Nouwen said, “in a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds”.
We may not always get things to perfection, we are not likely to always please everybody, and there may never seem to be enough good that we can do. But our mere existence in commitment to the ministries into which we pour our lives each day offers that Christian example and spiritual pathway through which the unconditional love of Christ can get us and others unstuck from that which bogs us down in life. Smoother traveling is on the way because of who you are and the things you do for Christ everyday.
May each of you experience the unhindered arrival of Christ during this Advent in ways that will give the most inspiring hope, an uninhibited joy, and a comforting peace for life’s continued journey.
Have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful New Year!
Marcus