Preparing the Way (Mark 1:1-8)

How do you prepare for Christmas?

This can be a crazy time of year for a lot of people. As we approach Christmas and the end of the year, there can be lots of things we feel like we need to do to prepare. Probably every home has a Christmas tree, so we need to assemble and decorate the tree and around the house. For people who like to decorate the outside of their homes, there are lights and other ornaments to put up. A lot of workplaces have end-or-year lunches or dinners to celebrate the year’s work or to farewell staff members. If we are having family or friends at our homes sometime over the Christmas and New Year period, we will probably need to clean the house, mow the lawn, weed the garden, and generally get the place clean and tidy. And, of course, there are all the presents to buy for family, friends, and others.

The weeks leading up to Christmas are a good time to prepare in lots of different ways. How often do we stop to ask, however, how we might be able to prepare our hearts and minds to welcome Jesus and celebrate his birth in a more spiritual, meaningful way?

Mark didn’t open his gospel with a story of Jesus’ birth like Matthew or Luke. Instead, he prepares his readers for the coming of the Messiah with the words of John the Baptist (Mark 1:1-8). This wild man from the wilderness was dressed in rough clothes made from camel hair like the legendary prophets from ancient times. His role was to prepare people for the coming of the Messiah. Mark quotes a section of this morning’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah 40:1-11 to show that John the Baptist was the person God foretold from five centuries before the birth of Jesus who would prepare the way for the arrival of God’s Chosen One. The Christ didn’t just turn up unannounced. John the Baptist was the one God sent to prepare people for his coming.

John did that by calling people to repent. We read in Mark 1:4 that ‘John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’ (NIV). John called people to prepare for the coming of the Messiah by taking a long, hard look at their lives to see where they fell short of the way God wanted them to live. In a similar way to us getting ready for visitors by cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, or weeding the garden, John was calling God’s people to clean up what wasn’t right, to get rid of the rubbish that had accumulated, and make things ready for when the Christ turned up.

He did this because repentance means change. In our worship, we often talk about repentance in connection with confession, especially in our Confession of Sins. This can lead people to think that to repent means to feel sorry or bad about the wrongs we have done. The Greek word which is translated as ‘repentance’ literally means to ‘turn around’ or ‘change direction’. To repent means that if I want to go to the city from Greenock but accidentally head onto the highway towards Renmark instead, I will get off at the next exit, change direction by turning around, and head in the opposite way. John the Baptist called the Jews of his time to prepare for Jesus’ arrival by repenting, turning around, going in a different direction, and heading towards God instead of away from him.

As we get ready to celebrate Christmas this year, John the Baptist is still calling us to prepare for Jesus’ arrival in our lives by repenting, turning around, going in a different direction, and heading towards God instead of away from him.

This can be really hard for us to do. We can get so distracted with all the things that we think we need to do and we think are so important that we can neglect getting ready to meet our Saviour. It’s like being so focussed on getting our homes ready that we’re still running around sweeping floors or mowing lawns and we don’t notice when our guests arrive. Or we can be so used to doing things a particular way at Christmas that we can lose the reason for the season which is to celebrate the birth of God’s Son and God embracing the human condition by taking on our flesh and blood. Or we can be so sure that what we’re doing is good and right that we can miss out on a better way that Jesus comes to give us. Repentance is hard because we do what we do because that’s what we’ve always done, or it suits us, or we can think it’s right or good. John’s call to repentance challenges us to ask, especially in our Christmas preparations, if what we’re doing is leading us away from or towards a loving relationship with God through Jesus. Because, if they’re leading us away from the hope, peace, joy or love Jesus offers to give us, maybe something needs to change.

It is important that, if we hear John’s call to prepare for Jesus’ arrival by making changes in our lives, we make those changes for the right reasons. We can prepare to celebrate Christmas in various ways either out of guilt or love. If people are coming to our homes, we can clean the house and tidy the yard because we are worried that they will think less of us or criticise us if it’s not up to their expectations. Or we can do exactly the same things because we love our guests, and we want to honour them by being at our best for them and giving them our best selves. A lot of the time we can associate repentance with guilt or fear. However, repentance can also be something that grows out of faith and love. Jesus doesn’t turn up and knock on the doors of our lives to criticise, judge, or condemn us. Jesus was born to meet us in our lives, no matter how messy or disorganised they might appear. He comes to love us in a way that changes our hearts. He is born to give us new relationships with God as our loving heavenly Father and with each other as his living body in the world. We light the Advent Candles at the start of each service to remind and encourage us in the faith that Jesus comes into our world and into our lives to gift us with his perfect hope, peace, joy, and love. When John the Baptist called people to repent, then and now, it wasn’t so we don’t get in trouble when God’s promised Messiah turns up, but because when the Christ arrives, he as so much good for us and our lives that we really don’t want to miss it.

I’m sure that at this time of year we all have a lot to do to prepare for Christmas. In the middle of the Christmas craziness, let’s hear John’s call to prepare for Jesus’ coming by repenting – by making changes. Instead of getting caught up in the commercialism, consumerism and expectations that surround this time of year, to repent means to change direction and head towards the manger where we find God entering our world and our hearts to give us his perfect, life-giving hope, peace, joy, and love. He’s worth preparing for.

More to think about or discuss:

• What are some of the ways you prepare for Christmas? Do you think that they might be leading you away from or towards Jesus?
• How do you understand the word ‘repent’? What do you think about understanding ‘repentance’ as ‘change’?
• What changes might be good for you to make to prepare for Jesus’ arrival this year as we get ready to celebrate Christmas?