Advent is a season of preparation. But not everyone is preparing for the same thing. While non-Christians prepare for the “holiday,” Christians prepare for the celebration of the birth of Christ. Then, even though Christians prepare for the same thing, the way they prepare for it often differs. While some prepare in a way that’s similar to the world’s way - putting up lights, trees, and decorations, buying gifts, fixing holiday meals, and throwing parties, other Christians focus more on the religious significance of the holiday and prepare for it by going to church, attending Advent and Christmas services, reading the Scriptures to their children and teaching them the true meaning of Christmas.
We prepare for something or someone, when we know that that someone or something will affect our lives, whether for good or for ill. The word “prepare” is a very broad word. It means “to get ready.” But it doesn’t tell you how to get ready. That would depend on the circumstance. For example, the way you would prepare for the arrival of guests on Christmas Day would differ from the way you would prepare for a mountain lion attack which you might face back in San Pedro Valley County Park. For the arrival of guests, you’d make sure everything ran according to your schedule. From the conversation and appetizers, to the dinner and desserts, you’d be the director, you’d be in control of the evening. You would have already directed your guests as to what date and time they were invited to come. You would have already determined what they were going to eat once they got there and even what room they were going to sit in upon their arrival. Preparing for guests in your home puts you in charge. And if your guests try to change things, it throws a wrench in your preparations and makes you upset.
Preparing for a possible mountain lion attack, however, is far different. You are anything but in charge. You don’t even know when or if the attack will occur. You’re just supposed to be prepared in case one does. Such preparations put you on the defense. They include knowing how to protect yourself in case of such an attack, which includes standing still and making yourself look big to the lion. Yet even here you are trying to gain some sort of control over the situation, so that you might not be at the mercy of this wild animal.
In today’s Gospel text, John the Baptist cries out in the wilderness on the banks of the Jordan River, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make His paths straight.” The question is, How? Some might prepare for His coming the way you might prepare for the coming of a guest - by making sure that you’re in control of everything, in control of Him. Preparations, then, would be made on your own terms, not His. Others, however, prepare for Him the way you might prepare for an immanent mountain lion attack, afraid that He’s going to pounce on you, crush you, and tear you apart. Such people are on the defense for Christ’s coming and prepare to protect themselves from His assault.
But notice that neither way of preparing for the Lord lets Him do what He wants to do. The one way we try to control Him, the other way we try to keep ourselves from being hurt by Him. Jesus, however, is a guest like no other. You are not His host, but He is yours. He doesn’t come at your invitation; you come at His. You don’t determine for yourself how you’re going to prepare for Him; He tells you how to prepare for Him. And regardless of how you might try to protect yourself from Him, He is a lion that is going to pounce on you and kill you, but only to make you truly alive. The way He does all this is through Baptism and the proclamation of His Word. Through these He prepares you to prepare His way by removing all hindrances that would keep Him from coming to you (including any attempts at controlling or protecting yourself from Him).
It’s the way He prepared the people of Israel to receive Him in the days of John the Baptist, when John preached a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Through such preaching, the people were brought to repentance, they were baptized, they received the forgiveness of their sins, and they engaged themselves in good works towards their neighbors, so that they might be ready for the Lord, having made the way straight for Him to come to them. It was not on their terms that He came to them, but on His. They were told to repent and be baptized. They were told to produce fruit in keeping with repentance. But they couldn’t take credit for following His instructions and boast in what a good job they had done in preparing for Him, as even the ability to do these things did not come from themselves, but from the Lord.
To repent is to start at point zero. It is to humble yourself before God. A repentant heart confesses that it’s empty of all righteousness and that it has nothing to offer God but its sin. It acknowledges that it deserves nothing but God’s wrath, that it deserves to be chopped down like a dead tree that isn’t producing any fruit and thrown into the fire. It doesn’t cling to its heritage, its good works, its nice disposition, or even its repentance and faith for its salvation, but to Jesus Christ alone, who experienced the fire of God’s wrath for you on the cross. To prepare for the Lord’s coming through repentance is to confess your inability to prepare for His coming, apart from being prepared by Him first.
The Lord works the repentance in you that He requires. With His Law He shows you that you have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Like a lion, He breaks your bones with His threats of punishment and kills you spiritually, so that you realize that you are dead in your trespasses and sins before Him. But He doesn’t leave you in this state. He doesn’t leave you dead; He doesn’t leave you empty. He raises you to new life and fills you with Himself and His gifts through Baptism. You may have received Baptism as a child or later as an adult. But in either case, it was not you who baptized yourself, nor can you boast in it as if it were something you did for God. God did it to you. By it He gave you new birth and made you a true child of Abraham, a child of God. Now, more than a guest in His house, you are all sons, heirs of eternal life and the glories of heaven to come in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Through repentance and Baptism, God fills the valleys, makes the mountains and hills low, straightens the crooked, and levels the rough places. All of these are descriptive of how God humbles you and me and removes all obstacles that would keep us from receiving the Lord when He comes to us. Some of those obstacles might be our pride and arrogance, as we insist on preparing for the Lord’s coming our own way. Other obstacles might be distractions that keep us from worshipping with God’s people or hearing His Word. Still other obstacles might be our fear of Him and the distorted ways we tend to view Him according to our fallen reason. But whatever the obstacles, the hindrance of all hindrances is sin. It’s from this obstacle that all other obstacles come.
But God removes this obstacle by forgiving you your sins for Christ’s sake. At the Jordan River, Jesus Himself, God in the flesh, received a Baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. There He identified Himself with you and all sinners, becoming the sinner in your place, as your sins were laid upon Him there, so that He might take them to the cross to atone for them with His blood. Through the proclamation of the forgiveness of your sins, God is telling you that your sins are no longer with you. They were given to Jesus, who has taken care of them with His perfect sacrifice. They have been removed from you as far as the east is from the west. They can no longer keep you from Jesus. You will be prepared to receive Him when He comes to you.
Having been brought to repentance, having been baptized, and having been forgiven all your sins for Christ’s sake, you are now like a healthy tree before God, able to produce good fruit, the fruit of faith. Like the crowds who asked John, “What shall we do?,” we can ask that same question without worrying about our salvation. A Christian has been given the good works of Christ, and therefore does not need his own good works to get him into heaven. A Christian is now free to think about others and how he might help them, instead of himself. And so, John directs the people to their neighbors and how they can serve them. They’re to do things like share their clothing and food with those in need. They’re not to steal from their neighbors, abuse them, or falsely accuse them. They’re to be content with what they have and not covet what belongs to their neighbor. All these fruits and more are signs that Christians have been prepared by the Lord to receive Him when He comes.
The Lord has brought you to repentance and faith, He has baptized you, He has forgiven you all your sins and now produces the fruit of faith in you as you continue to hear His Word, keep it, and do it by the power of His Spirit, whom He has given you. So, prepare the way of the Lord and make His paths straight. Repent of your sins, remember your Baptism, live under your Lord’s forgiveness, and live in love towards your neighbor. Be what God has created you to be in Christ. And having prepared for the Lord’s coming in this way, you will see the salvation of God. You’ll see it today, as Jesus comes to you in His Word and in His Holy Supper, and you’ll see it on the Last Day, when Jesus comes in the clouds with all His saints to take you to live with Him in His kingdom of glory. There you will get to see your salvation face to face as you feast with Him in the new creation forever. Amen.