We have all had the experience of waiting up for the late arrival of a guest. In the days before cell telephones, there was little else one could do except wait, and pray that the person concerned was all right. As the expected hour passes, still one waits, afraid to do anything else, or to go to bed, in case there is no one to welcome the guests when they arrive. There is the constant going outside to see if anyone is coming, the endless to-and-fro to make sure that the bed is turned back, the towels are fresh, the water in the kettle stays hot.
Eventually, just when everyone is nodding off, there is the sound of the vehicle stopping, the slamming of car doors, the crowding out the front door of the house to receive the travel-worn guest with cheerfulness, cups of tea or coffee, and a sympathetic ear for whatever misfortune was the cause of the delay. And relief and pleasure; the guest has finally come, the waiting is over; life can once more move forwards.
Last week we celebrated the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the Church’s new year. The readings were very much concerned with watching and waiting for the Lord. In a nutshell, the message of last week’s readings is that, whatever signs we see of the Lord’s coming, God wants us always to be awake and watching, ready to receive him whenever he comes.
The Old Testament readings for this Sunday, in any year, sound rather like a civil engineering project; levelling hills, filling in valleys. One is reminded of the digging of the Panama canal or the building of the great Aswan dam. But one is also more specially reminded of the preparations which happen for a big occasion or the visit to a country of a very important foreign head of state: the building of great new highways, the clearing of unsightly messes alongside the new route, and so on. The visit of President Nixon to Moscow in 1976, the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, are two notable modern examples of whole cities being transformed for important occasions. Imagine how carefully we would prepare for a visit of Pope Francis to Bloemfontein; all of us, Church and City Fathers together.
The transformation of the wilderness spoken of in the Old Testament prophets is for them, as it is indeed for us, a preparation for the greatest visit of all; high mountains and valleys, some of them below sea level, being levelled out to make a straight road for the Coming of the Lord. God, in the words of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, “visits us like the dawn from on high…he has come to his people and set them free.”
John makes it clear to us that watching and waiting means “preparing the way of the Lord.” , making “the crooked straight and the rough places plain.” His message “Repent!” tells us that it is in the human heart that this preparation has to be made. All the hills of pride and self-righteousness have to be levelled. All the deep, dark valleys of sin have to be filled in. Each one of us needs to confront the big sins of our existence, and to bring them before God for healing.
There are mountains of pride, valleys of sin, crooked and rough places in the hearts of each one of us. Ultimately, when God comes, we will stand alone before him to be judged, and the others around us will have no part in that judgement; the responsibility is ours alone. It is our task to address, and through God’s grace, to deal with the sin and darkness within us. As we watch and wait for the Lord, let us persevere in the hard and difficult task of preparing our hearts for his coming; and when he comes, may he find hearts ready to receive him, a “straight highway through the desert” across which he may advance, to make his home with us forever.
Fr Phillip
