Prepare for disruption and mess

From Helen

I am not one for mess, I really struggle to see papers and books everywhere. Now don’t think that our house is unbearably neat. I just have ways of disguising mess, which usually means a pile of papers where something very important is hidden. As you can imagine this can be catastrophic sometimes.

I often rush around the house looking for something that I am sure I put somewhere safe but where that place was well…

I was thinking about this when I looked at the readings for today. In the reading from Malachi (3:1-4) and also in our gospel reading (Luke 3:1-6) we heard from two prophets whose job was probably one of the most unenviable jobs ever which was to prepare the way for God. To instruct people that they needed to change their ways because when He came well …

In Malachi they were going to be purified as if by fire- to be honest that sounds painful and it certainly was meant to be. As people were before God they were going to be dealing with the fact that God knew their sins, they needed to repent and be ready.

In the gospel reading John the Baptist was telling people that they were to make the way ready for God. They were to be ready for God to appear, they needed to make sure that they were ready and so the paths would be straight. It is a little like when an important visitor arrives you lay a red carpet for them, so they have a comfortable path and they know that they are being respected. 

Malachi and John the Baptist were telling people that they needed to be ready. I don’t want you to think that everything was perfect for Jesus when He did arrive, we all know that it was not perfect for Him. But some people had turned to God and were getting ready.

I often like to think of God as having come into our mess and helping us to find our way out. 

It is as if John the Baptist was telling the people to be ready to receive God into their mess so that they would be trying to turn more and more to Him. 

This week we have seen mess after mess in politics, in the world, when we look at our streets and we see people whose lives are messed up. Whenever we consider the pains that the ones we love go through, whenever we consider those who are homeless, those who are unable to feed themselves, then the idea of life being better seems like a pipe dream.

We though, live with the knowledge that somehow in ways we can’t explain God who has stepped into the mess of the world once will do it again and He is doing it everyday through us.

John the Baptist talked of preparing the way of the Lord.Zechariah his father in what we call the Benedictus (Luke 1:68-79) which we said today instead of the Psalm praised God that He was coming to save His people to shine on those in darkness and to bring peace.

Zechariah could see that God was going to come into the darkness, the mess, with His amazing light.

God has done this which means that we have the responsibility as His people on earth today to be more and more like Him. To reach out to those in need, to show people that there is a way out of the mess and that way is to have trust in God that He will bring to completion the work that He has started in us, as we heard in the reading from the letter to the Philippians (1:3-11).

God has stepped into our mess and He is with us always. This means that no matter what our expectations are, no matter what pressures we feel under we know that God is with us and we will prepare for Him day by day in our lives as we seek to be more and more like Him. Loving and praying for all those who need to know that God is with them and He has the victory.

Can you imagine the impact it can make for someone who is feeling completely overwhelmed, who feels their life is in a mess to know that God is with them ? Can you imagine the impact it would have if whenever we pray the Lord’s prayer we see that we can help God’s kingdom to come as we reach out to others with love working to make the world a better place, a place more like God intended? 

God is with us and He wants us to know His love, He wants us to trust Him to step into our difficult situations, to those parts of our lives that we want to keep hidden. He wants us to make the paths straight for Him by turning to Him again and again and starting afresh with Him everyday knowing that he loves us just as we are but He doesn’t want to leave us that way because He wants us to know what it is to feel truly loved and in turn to love as He loves. 

There is a story from the American TV series, the West Wing, that one character tells to another that I really love,  I am going to read this story to you as it is a story that reminds us that God has stepped in but we need to be ready to let Him in …

This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.

"A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.

"Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on

"Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"

God knows our messes and He knows the way out, may we be ready to trust in Him that He can do it. May we in this advent and always look forward to the time when God will come again, and to remember that we need to be ready to receive Him into our lives day by day AMEN