Preparing the Way — And here's why

A sermon for the second Sunday of Advent, based on Isaiah 40:1-11 and Mark 1:1-8.

Would you pray with me?

God who has prepared so much for us, thank you for bringing us together in this moment. By your Spirit, make your presence known among us, and may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

When I think about people who prepared the way for me, I think about my first grade Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Johnson, may she rest in peace. She managed to wrangle thirty six-year-olds every Sunday morning into a classroom and to our tables, where we learned bible stories and made crafts, so her peace is well-earned. But what I remember most is this snow globe she gave me, the first one I ever had. It’s small, maybe four or five inches tall, with a base that’s all rounded white clouds and gold stars, and inside is an angel, flying and holding out another gold star, with small, foil gold stars that float in the water. I still have it. It used to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” but whatever battery it has inside it died a long time ago. If I remembering right, I earned it by memorizing ten different prayers or bible verses, which explains all the gold stars.

Thinking about the snow globe now, I’m amazed that she trusted me with this prize. It was 1996, which was a different time, and I was a good kid, but still, looking back, I’m not convinced I was good enough for this. If I was a Sunday School teacher, I would have had some trepidation giving a snow globe made of real glass to a first grader and sending her off to sit in Big Church. Mrs. Johnson trusted me, though.

But maybe she trusted me because she knew something I didn’t. Maybe she trusted me because she knew that she had helped to prepare me for it. After all, memorizing that much scripture takes dedication on the part of a six-year-old. It showed that I could focus and pay attention. It showed that I was responsible and that I cared. She had created a classroom space where we learned to be patient and to endure through challenges, even if they were much smaller challenges than what we might encounter in the world outside of the Sunday School classroom. Maybe I was more prepared for my snow globe than I thought.

Thinking back to that much smaller version of myself, who often darted around the adults who would stand talking to one another in the foyer or in the aisles of the church, just to find my way to my ideal seat on my ideal pew, Mrs. Johnson’s lessons probably helped me to slow down on that Sunday morning when she gave me the snow globe. Instead of walking a path that twisted and turned around the people in my way, I bet I walked much straighter path. Instead of bouncing up and down as I ran, I bet I leveled out my steps, trying to walk as even of a path as I could. After church was over, I probably walked just as slowly and carefully out of the sanctuary as I had into it, carrying my prize all the way to the nursery, where my mother could put it somewhere safe while I helped her clean up the room. Then, with my mother’s help, I could keep it safe from my brothers on the way home until it made it all the way to my room, where I cleared out a place of prominence on my shelf for it.

Now, as a kid, I needed that help. I needed all the preparation work that Mrs. Johnson did and all the support my mother gave me. I was still learning how to take care of fragile things, still learning how to make my world safe for beautiful but not durable things. I didn’t have much experience or strength in my arms. The practice of treating some objects with special care was new to me, so I needed all the instruction and guidance and help that I could get.

So what does all of this have to do with Advent? What does all of this have to do with peace? Well, our two readings today, one from Mark and one from Isaiah, talk about preparing the way of the Lord. They talk about making the way of the Lord straight and making the rough places plain. And I wonder if maybe how we prepare the way of the Lord in this season is like how Mrs. Johnson prepared me years ago.

Because in this season, we are preparing the way for the Prince of Peace and peace, much like my snow globe, is fragile. Peace, much like my snow globe, must be cared for. A clear path must be prepared for it and a solid space must be cleared out for it to dwell.

We don’t often talk about peace that way in Christianity. We think of peace as a fruit of the Spirit, peace like a river, the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, the unending peace that the reign of God will bring on earth. We think of peace as enduring and strong. We long for everlasting peace and we have the audacity to believe that it will be here one day.

I don’t think we’re wrong to think of peace that way. I think that deep, enduring peace is part of the promise that God gives us. But I think that, this side of heaven, we only get glimpses of that peace. I think that, more often than not, peace on Earth breaks easily, because we have not prepared ourselves for peace. I think that peace only endures in this life when we have made a way for it, because so much of this world is not prepared for lasting peace.

Lasting peace requires more than just setting aside differences for the time being so that we can share a moment of goodwill. Lasting peace requires us to examine what divides us and to discern what to do about it. Some division, some difference is good and healthy and God-given, like different bodies and talents and ideas, but some division harmful. The division that hurts is usually division that comes from elevating one person or some people over another. I think that’s why Isaiah talks about the mountains being made low and the valleys being exalted. Preparing the way of the Lord, preparing the way of peace, requires first that we understand that we’re all equally worthy of love and attention, both from God and from each other, and then, we have to make moves to make that equality a reality, raising up those who have been ignored or rejected and lowering down those who have been put on pedestals that no one truly deserves to be up on. Then and only then will the way be ready. Then and only then will Christ carry in peace that will last forever, as patiently, gently, and carefully as a six-year-old girl cradling her very first snow globe.

We can dream about what that world looks like, a peaceful world where those harmful divisions are gone, I think. And so often, we stop at dreaming. We press pause, waiting for that day when we’ll all go somewhere over the rainbow, where skies are blue and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. But Advent is a time of dreaming and preparing. It’s a time of imagining and making ready. It’s a pregnant time, a time when we work on the nursery before the baby arrives.

This week, friends, I invite you to do both things. Dream of what a peaceful world will look like and then ponder what we’ll need to do in order to prepare the way for that dream to become reality. These are big questions, of course, and we’ll all come up with different answers, as God intended, but we need to take this first steps if we are to be ready to welcome in the Christ child on Christmas. Our Prince of Peace needs a cradle this year and this year, we are Joseph, the carpenter dreamer, preparing for the birth of a new world.

Amen.