The first coming of Jesus came as a gift from God to his people. God made all the preparations for his Son Jesus to come into the world. At the fullness of time, when everything had reached full term God gave the world a gift by the name of Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. (Isa 9:6) With arms outstretched from heaven to earth God said, “Here is my Son. Receive Him. Love Him. Nurture his life with you.”
It is not difficult for me to connect with the first coming of Jesus and the gift of being given a child. For many years my husband Jeff and I considered adoption and although that is not the route we took there were months during which we imagined a birth mother saying to us, “Here is my child. I did all the work. I delivered him but am giving him has a gift to you.” We knew then and still know today what a miraculous moment it is for those who are waiting for a child especially if the child is long awaited and particularly if someone else has done all the work on your behalf and simply presented you with the present you have dreamed about for so long.
The good news of a long awaited child is one of the reasons for the celebration of Advent. We have been given in the flesh the gift of a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes and we didn’t even have to prepare for him we just had to have open arms to receive him when he came. Many of you have received Jesus into your life and you know what I mean when I say God did all the preparatory work; orchestrating events, connecting you with the message, revealing to you the Word of God, and opening up your heart. And at the fullness of time, when everything was ready, Jesus came to you as your Savior and you received him as a gift from God. That will always be reason to celebrate.
However, as I mentioned last week the season of Advent is not just celebratory it’s also preparatory. It is a celebration of the first coming when God did all the preparing so that his Son could come as a gift to us, but Advent is also the anticipation of the second coming for which we do the preparing so that we can be a gift back to God when he arrives. And so we begin the preparations by listening to the call of John the Baptist who was preparing the way of the Lord by calling God’s people to repent, make straight paths and produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matt 3:1-12).
The scriptures testify that the way this crookedness would start its way toward straight was through the act of confession. The text says that people came from all over to get the kinks out of their crookedness; to obtain an out from their past, a fresh start after their stupidity and a new beginning after their bumbling about. And I ask you, “Who doesn’t want that?” But John the Baptist was calling people to something greater than admitting what was out of alignment. This was not the regular confession of an apologetic people, but rather a once-for-all repentance and a turning from an old way of life to the advent of a new kind of living.
This was the advent of God doing something new and it would require that God’s people committed to something new as well. John was calling God’s people to convert and not just to confess. Repentance was not to be an over the shoulder apology while people continued in the ways they were walking. This was a moment to change the direction one’s life was moving. This was not just confessing one’s sins this was converting one’s life.
John the Baptist then turns to the religious people standing there, people who believed they were ready for the Lord’s coming because of their status as Abraham’s offspring. They believed their birth guaranteed the goodness of God on their behalf and that their upbringing established their status as secure, they were confident that their rituals gave them the right to expect inclusion in ruling party of God’s kingdom. John says to these religious people gathered before him, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”
These are words of preparation for the church of God today for like the religious gathered in front of John much of the Christian church has presumed its privileged status. I know that we know that salvation is not genetic and that we cannot inherit a relationship with God but we have lived as though once a person has self-identified as a Christian, through a prayer or rite of initiation, that they…that we… are in and untouchable no matter what.
I hope this is true because there are so many people who are presuming upon it, people banking their status in the Kingdom of God on a prayer they prayed or a rite they passed through. I hope when Jesus returns or when people return to Jesus that they find themselves welcomed because of the expansive reach of God’s grace. But I will tell you this; there is no passage of scripture that testifies to this being the way to go. There is not a scrap of evidence that the plan of God was to get people to pray a prayer and then live lives as they pleased. There is not one proclamation within the Bible’s pages that the plan of Jesus was to have people accept him into their hearts and then continue to have a heyday heaping up sins, hurting the plans of God and harming the reputation of Jesus.
God’s plan from the beginning was that people would repent and turn from the wrong ways they were walking and produce of fruit in keeping with repentance. John the Baptist says that the way we prepare for the Lord’s coming is to turn our life around and get it pointing in the same direction as our profession is proclaiming. Repentance should produce fruit and our confession should be converted into transformation. This is the way to prepare for the coming King.
And so as we prepare together, may we confess the kinks in our crookedness and may we find ourselves crafting lives that become a gift back to God because we have not only received the gift of His Son but loved and nurtured the life he entrusted to us.
May you find the advent of new things in your life this season.
