What are you preparing for?

 

Coming off from our Advent and Christmas season, we remember the time we took setting up our trees or décor. Physically, it seems easier to take down our decorations than to put them up. There’s no need to think about how the decoration and ornaments look or how they are placed when it gets put back into their box or into a bin to sit in a closet, waiting in anticipation to be brought back out again next year.

It is a bit melancholy to put away these things that we esteem with beautiful memories. But we prepared for this; we knew when we put them up that they’d come down. We put them up to welcome a new year, a Savior born to us, new beginnings. We build up anticipation, eager thoughts towards what comes next. Our children daydream about Christmas. Even we, dear adult readers, do this. We prepare with all-consuming anticipation of what’s next—anticipating what life will be, or what will change at the long-awaited new start. We do this with more than just Christmas. For instance, the purchasing of a new home.

What does it look like while we wait? Perhaps our anticipation is not unlike those of our predecessors in the Christian faith, described in the texts from this past Sunday, Luke 2: 15-17 and 21-22. This passage contains an account of John the Baptizer as he baptized the people on the banks of the Jordan. The account included the baptism of Jesus, which was the theme of this past Sunday, when we celebrated the Baptism of our Lord.

The people of Israel, including John at the riverbanks, had been waiting and preparing for well over 800 years. Generations on generations of people had been waiting since the first time they were given the prophecy of a Messiah in Isaiah and the first time they heard “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

God had commanded them to get ready for the coming of the Messiah, and then they had to stay prepared. That is a long time to wait in anticipation. As they waited for those 800 years, the people of Israel produced so much poetry and love from this promise that I believe they were the experts at waiting. Rather than hearing a majority of complaints and lament within the Old Testament, we get heroism and praise. The faith that the Hebrew people had was impressive producing those psalms. Like our Christmas carols, they would know these songs to the Lord by heart.

In Luke chapter 2 we read that they came to the banks with someone who declared again this prophecy, someone who recognized the psalms and speaks again of a Messiah. Although undoubtedly, he was a scruffy-looking prophet, it is no wonder that they got so excited that they mistake the prophet proclaiming and baptizing as the Messiah. John reminds them that he is not the Messiah, but that the Messiah is close. That is what this passage is partly about. The people being excited about the expected coming of God into their world echoes to us now in the 21st century, a message that we should be “filled with expectation, with eager anticipation.” We should be feeling like children on Christmas Eve and prepare. The difference for us today is that we know who the Messiah is, and that God’s grace saves us.

We know that Jesus Christ has claimed us in our baptism and redeemed us of all our sins. That knowledge should have us not just experiencing “eager anticipation” but also joyfulness as we too can prepare. We can open ourselves to others and worship with one another. Allowing others to learn what we know, using those old familiar psalms and hymns. We can prepare with our knowledge of what comes next with our joy and eagerness to see it. The presence of God is made know to us. We celebrate well those things given to us through Christ, but now how do we deal with more delayed anticipation? We know that Christ will come again, and we are waiting eagerly for that. In fact, we are waiting for a lot of things. I believe as we wait once again, we should take a page from the ancient Hebrews as they worshipped together and came to the riverside. In the same way, they did with psalms and records of God’s presence; we can continue to prepare ourselves. With the Lord and our communities, we can weather any waiting when we do it together and draw others in that are also waiting. Whatever you are preparing for, let’s wait together.

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Reverend William Strand of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.