Christ. The reason for all seasons.
We’ve got a 30-foot inflated snowman across the street. He lights up from within, but not just light. He looks like he swallowed a discotheque from 1978. He is awesome. People are stopping to take pictures with him. Perhaps he is the very image of Advent. You see him and you know it must be getting close to Christmas, right?
A common phrase we hear this time of year and that we might repeat is, “Don’t forget the reason for the season.” On the surface that is a reminder to the world – and to ourselves - not to lose the point of Christmas, the birth of Jesus and all that he means, is the midst of the commercialization of Christmas. But it’s not just the commercialization. It’s all the good stuff, too.
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The sort of persons we ought to be.
John’s baptism is hitting a nerve with a lot of people. Mark tells us all the people from the countryside and from Jerusalem are continuously coming out to hear John the Baptist. They are attracted by two aspects of John’s being.
First, he sounds like the prophets of old. He’s quoting Isaiah from another time when the people were also driven to repentance. The bit that Mark quotes evokes the entire passage we had in the first reading and more. God’s response to that repentance is warm and loving, “Comfort my people…Speak tenderly to Israel…prepare the way of The Lord…Lift up, do not fear…he will feed his flock…he will gather the lambs in his arms…he will gently lead..”
They want things to change and they know that change begins within each one of them.
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Christ Will Strengthen You.
Some weeks ago I ran across a quip where someone said they didn’t want to turn the clocks back an hour this fall because they didn’t want to add an hour back to 2020. Here we are at the start of the church’s new year, the first Sunday of Advent, with a sense of caution. A year ago none of us saw 2020 coming as it has. If I had, I would have gotten you to stock up on toilet paper.
I don’t need to go through the litany of worldwide, national and local disturbances we have endured this year. The personal struggles and losses for many or most of us have been tough, too. In truth, they have been worse. When we go through trials personally and when we endure the loss of dear friends it takes a toll. And all of it stacks up.
Paul wrote to the church at Corinth affirming them as a grace-filled body formed around the testimony of Christ. They have been “enriched in him in speech and knowledge of every kind.”
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