Christ Is Coming, Call John

Are you ready? That’s what the season of Advent is all about, getting ready.

Christmas is coming and Advent is the four weeks before it, give or take, that we have to prepare. Just to clarify that, though: what are we getting ready for, exactly?

Preparing for Christmas can mean decorations, lights, shopping, baking, carol singing, parties and planning - of course, planning - the Big Christmas Dinner. Sure, those are all the signs and sounds of the season. Along with cold, snow, ice and, today anyway, rain. Traditions are important and we have a lot.

Preparing for Christmas may not include all that for some people. For some it’s a difficult time, remembering loved ones who are no longer here, dealing with mental health or physical illness, a broken relationship, a lost job or too much work and not enough time or money. It’s a complicated time and many people need our support and care.

So there’s a lot going on around Christmas. Sometimes that can be where it stays, too, around Christmas. But at the heart of Christmas is the love that came in a child, born in the poorest of surroundings to ordinary people. That child will grow up to live a life that shows us what’s true about ourselves, that we are good, that we are created in love, and that love brings life to the world. This love is for everyone, and this story begins in Bethlehem, one night in a stable. 

So, how do we prepare for that? How do we prepare to be open to this love, to embrace it and engage it?

When I was a kid growing up in Toronto, we lived in the east end of town and to get downtown we had to cross the Don River near the lakeshore. As we came over the rise of the overpass, this sign would appear just above the guardrail. It said “Christ is coming! Call Jim” and a phone number.

It belonged to an old evangelical-gospel church under the end of the overpass. I often wondered what Jim would say, but I never called the number. The sign’s probably gone now, but I always remember it in Advent because I think how cool it would be if it said “Christ is coming! Call John” and a phone number in the Middle East somewhere.

See, that’s why we hear the voice of John the Baptist in Advent. The very adult John says “Christ is coming! Be ready! Repent and be baptized.”

That’s why we call John “the Baptist,” because he did that, he baptized people. Sure, but that was just the sign that goes with the really important part. His real job is that he’s the Herald of the Messiah, the Announcer that the Anointed One - the Christ - is coming. He tells us to prepare and, most importantly, how: repent.

We’ve come to hear that word differently, I think. We’ve put lots of religious baggage on it. But I think that all John meant was turn away from all the distractions of the world, all the things that keep us from the goodness, the love and the peace that’s truly in our hearts, turn away from that “sin” or “wickedness” we might say, turn away and open our hearts to love, to the divine, to however you understand God. Turn aside from all that stuff, even if just for a moment, and look: a child is born. This new, innocent, vulnerable life is just the beginning of something amazing.