The original message of
Advent was quite different from what we have now. Now it has become the time of
buying the gifts we want to give, going to office parties, etc, but this is quite
different from the original message.
John the Baptist was sent by God to prepare the people for the coming of
Jesus and his message was very strong.
‘Repent, confess your sins, change your lives and look for happiness in
the right place, that is, in God.’ This
is the part of preparing for Christmas that is easy to overlook. We want the celebration of Christmas, but we
don’t necessarily want to have to repent.
Just leave us alone and let us celebrate. We want absolution, but without having to confess. We want the love and blessing of God without
having to follow the commandments. We
want faith on our terms. That is called
‘cheap grace’. It is empty and it is not
the message of God.
The message of God is a
wonderful one, but is also a very demanding one. We can not come and pick what we like. Instead we come and ask what is required of
us. That is what the people who came to John asked: ‘What must we do?’ To be a
disciple of Jesus is to be a follower. It is understandable that we are not used to
thinking this way, because our world encourages us to make sure things are as
we would like them. If you’re not happy,
move on. But this is not the message of
the Gospels. In the Gospel we listen to
what it is that God asks of us. We
follow God on God’s terms and not our terms.
Jesus said that John the
Baptist was the greatest man ever born of woman. He was totally focused on God. He knew what was important and he simply
passed on the message he was told to pass on, but it cost him his life. He was beheaded by Herod for speaking the
truth. We don’t always want to hear the
truth because it is often demanding and challenges us to change.
We want to be able to
celebrate Christmas and rightly so. But
if we are serious about celebrating Christmas as a Christian feast, then let us not forget the message of John the
Baptist. ‘Repent, for the Kingdom of
heaven is close at hand.’ ‘God is
coming: get ready.’ The term ‘repent’
can also mean ‘change the direction in which you are looking for happiness.’ That is a particularly powerful message at
this time in history. So many people
have been looking for happiness in the world, but now everything has collapsed
and many have been bitterly disappointed and left with a feeling that all is
gone. However, the Lord is telling us to
turn to him for happiness. It is only in
God that we will find true happiness.
The world will disappoint us; God will not.
The most important
preparation we can make for Christmas is the interior preparation, the change
of heart, the confession of sins. And
yes, most of us don’t like to have to confess our sins, we think we shouldn’t
have to, but this is what God asks us to do.
The celebration of Christmas is meaningless if we skip the kind of
preparation that God asks us to make and sadly for many people it has become
meaningless. It doesn’t have to be
meaningless, because it is the celebration of something very wonderful, the
coming of God among us in the person of Jesus.
The Lord is still waiting to come to each of us:
I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door
to me, I will come in and sit down to eat with him, and he with me. (Rev
3:20)
Those words are from the
book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible and this message is repeated all
through the Bible in different ways. The
Lord wants to be at the centre of what we do, but we are the only ones who can
allow that to happen.
‘Repent, for
the kingdom of God is close at hand.’
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