Advent II

Advent II
Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.

A true prophet of God is a time traveler.

A true prophet of God reaches out with one hand into the past to hear and echo the voice of God speaking to Moses the ineffable and omnipotent Name of God: I am. I am. It is in the context of that awesome and holy name of God that the prophet hears the Law God spoke to Moses.
The prophet hears the Name and in hearing the Name understands the Law. God is. Because God is, the Law is. People rebel against the law. People reject the Law. But, no one ever breaks the Law. The Law is absolute eternal truth. The Law proceeds from He who is: the eternal presence in the timeless present.

No human being ever breaks the Law. It is the Law that breaks human beings. This is not God’s will for us. God created us to be his children. God loves us.

And so, it is the call of the prophet to bring God’s Name and God’s Law forward into the present. As the prophet brings the Word of God into the present he confronts the power of sin.
The power of sin is the human will to power that insists: my will be done. I want what I want and I want it now and I refuse to acknowledge the consequences.

The human will to power is self will that produces separation from God.

As the prophet holds the Law of Moses to the present he hears the voice of God speaking one word: repent. Turn around. Make a change. Embrace the Name. Accept the truth even as you are broken by the Law. It is the duty of the prophet to proclaim the eternal truth of God to his specific generation.

God spoke to Moses and said: I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other Gods but me.
The prophet brings that past statement to the present reality. As the perfect Law of God meets imperfect, lost and rebellious human beings, the prophet discerns where and how people reject the law and walk away from God. The urgency of the prophetic voice is the call to repentance.

The call to repentance says: Stop. You are going the wrong way. You are making choices that distort your soul and disrupt your happiness. You need to turn around. You need to head into a different direction. Because, if you continue in your present direction you will create pain and suffering, fear and frustration, isolation and separation.

The Law is holy and good. If you continue on this path, you will break your mind, your heart and your will on the Law. Stop.

God then invites the prophet into a very specific time into the future to bring into the present a different message. It is also a complementary message. The prophet perceives the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah is the personal presence of God in the world. The Messiah is the fulfillment of the plan of salvation God initiated with Abraham and Moses.

The prophet holds the reality of the Messiah to the present moment and perceives the truth of the hearts and minds and wills of the people. No room. There is no room in our souls for the Messiah. Self will rejects the Messiah.

And so, the prophet cries out. Prepare. Make a different choice. Make his paths straight.
The invitation to prepare is the invitation to reconcile the absolute holiness of God as revealed in the Law with the eternal love of God made flesh in the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Repentance is the cleaning out of accumulated debris in our path. Preparation is the intention to walk the path God has set before us. That path is steadfast holy love.

There is an old saying: short cuts make long delays.

The path that God sets before us in Moses and in Christ is the straight and narrow path of life. There are detours. And, there are signs left by people who took those detours. The signs say: this way is so much easier. This way brings so much more pleasure. This path is just as good as the narrow path and will ultimately take you to the same place.

Every one who left these signs at the off ramps to the detours lied. They either believed a lie and repeated it. Or, they simply ignored the truth and lied.

The voice of the prophet cries out in the wilderness of false teachers, false promises and false gods. God is the great I am.

God doesn’t just offer an opinion about truth. God is truth.

The bad news is, if your life is broken, hollow, meaningless it is because you chose a detour off the straight and narrow path of life. The good news is, if your life is broken, hollow, meaningless, you can make a different choice.

Make room for Jesus Christ. Make his path to your soul straight.
How do we do this?

First, if you have never accepted the gift of reunification with God in Christ do it now. Make the real choice to stop. Turn around. Face Christ. Make a real chouce to make room for Jesus in your life. Say yes to his gift of eternal love. Receive the gift. Then know, you are one with the Father through the Son, now and forever.

Second, once you have received the gift Jesus brings it is time to straighten out the detours in our souls. The inner detours are like knots. Some times with patience we can unravel them. Some times we just need to take a more direct approach and cut them open and remove them.
How can we identify these inner spiritual detours and knots? The only way we can do this is by reading the Bible prayerfully and intentionally. Before we begin to read the Bible it is important to ask the Holy Spirit to guide us. It is also important to ask the Holy Spirit to show us the way to implement in our daily lives the lessons we learn.

Third: make worship the single most important priority in your life. Nothing is more important. It is the first and great commandment that summarizes all of the commandments. In worship we immerse ourselves in the eternal love of God. We rediscover our meaning and purpose. We claim the joy of abundance God has prepared for us. We receive direction and guidance for our lives.

Fourth: we make the paths of our souls straight so we can fulfill the second summary of the law. Love others as you love yourself. God has given us a job to do. Our job is to live life from the question: how may I help? As you make the pathways of your soul straight to receive the fulness of Jesus Christ, you will begin to notice human need.

Human need has two aspects: material and spiritual. God wants each of us to offer the gift of reunification with divine love to all people. We cannot do this if we are lost in a detour or tied up in knots. We make our paths straight so we can be open to the Holy Spirit speaking through us to others to offer them the gift of love in Jesus Christ. Jesus says: when you encounter some one who is lost- offer to show them the way.

Human need also has a material aspect. Jesus says, if you see some one who is hungry- feed them. If you encounter some one who is lonely- spend time with them.

There is always an urgency in the prophetic voice. Repent and Prepare. The time is short. The moment is now, not later. If we delay until later we delay until never.

Our need is too deep to delay. Human need is too insistent for us to delay.

Now is the time to repent.

Now is the time to prepare.

Now is the time for each of us to prepare our souls in the way of our living Lord Jesus Christ.

Now is the time to make the pathways in our souls straight and open to the real presence of our living Lord Jesus Christ.

The word of God for us on this second Sunday of Advent is the voice of the prophets who cry out loudly and urgently: Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.