Prepare

Perhaps this is no longer done because of regulations, but roads were one way to prepare for elections. Roads were built or repaved to curry favor with the electorate in the hope that people would vote for whoever was seen to care enough for the commons and the welfare of the community. (We now have epal and all sorts of labels pasted on public infrastructure but roads were just as good as these campaign tactics in promoting candidates whatever their motive or political color.)

Today, the second Sunday of Advent, a lone voice is heard from the desert, the voice of an austere man named John, telling us to clear the roads because a certain kind of king is coming and therefore to get the “infrastructure” ready. It was common practice then as it is now (see APEC) to clear the land lanes for rulers on a visit. Thus, when John cries out of the wilderness to tell us that our king, the Lord is coming, people are filled with expectation.

“Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

This time though, the road clearing has nothing to do with allocating special lanes for the King and everything to do with dismantling barriers that separate Him from us, which also means taking down the fences that divide us from one another and our very selves. When John comes to tell us to prepare the way for His coming, he turns us to a baptism of repentance (metanoia or conversion) for the forgiveness of sins.

How may we prepare for God’s coming?

We can first ponder what this coming really means to us, if it really means something to us, not in the future, but now, here in the flesh. How can we prepare for His coming if do not have a sense of what this coming might mean in our lives today? What does it mean for God to come into our lives?

If God were to come into our lives, what are we asking Him to do or be for us? If His coming is indeed our redemption, what does it mean for us to be redeemed? If His coming is our deepest deliverance, what do we long to be delivered from? If we have lost our sense of God, might we not have lost our sense of direction as well, this intimate sense of who we are? And losing our way, might we not find Him (and our bearings) somehow somewhere there beneath the heap of our gifts and longings?

To prepare for His coming, we are told that mountains need to be leveled, valleys filled up, serpentine paths straightened, and rough spots paved. The topographic imagery is a rich source of meanings for our understanding of advent preparation.

Mountains are swellings while valleys are hollows in the landscape of our lives. Mountains can be monuments to the loftiness of our pride and ego, our delusions of self-rightness and self-grandeur. These mountains harbor the Pharisee in us, the rich young man’s “non-sin,” the sin (or hurt) we do not ask forgiveness for, the sin we do not see or refuse to see. Valleys can be ravines that remind us of the depth of our depressions, anxieties, and fears. These valleys protect our delusions of self-wrongness and self-pity; they incubate the sin we think we cannot be forgiven for, the sin we do not allow God or ourselves to forgive.

Winding paths and rugged roads point to the circuitous ways we deal with one another, the roundabout ways we avoid each other, the obstacles we set up to trip each other and ourselves for reasons we have learned to justify over time.

The coming of the King, preparing His way calls us to look again at the landscape of our lives. It can be a time of contrition and conversion, a time of joy when mercy is received and given.

In one section of his long poem, For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, W.H. Auden tells us how we are to prepare for His coming:

Because of His visitation, we may no longer desire God as if He were lacking: our redemption is no longer a question of pursuit but of Surrender to Him who is always and everywhere present. Therefore at every moment we pray that, following Him, we may depart from our anxiety into His peace.

Indeed, with the incarnation, there is no longer any need for pursuit, for any more anxious seeking. Only a simple surrender, a self-emptying to receive the one Gift that is offered at His coming. We now know in faith that this Love alone is redeeming.