"Let every heart prepare him room" Sermon for 2 Advent
Sermon for Sunday 9 December 2018
2 Advent
Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem
The Rev. Carrie Ballenger Smith
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
One evening about a week ago, I went
to bed feeling very excited about the next day. It wasn’t because of what was
on my schedule, but because of what was not on my schedule. My calendar for
the next day showed only one appointment. Just one thing, all day! It was like
a little Christmas miracle – or, more accurately, an Advent miracle. I drifted off
to sleep imagining those hours and hours of unscheduled time: time to prepare upcoming
Advent and Christmas Eve sermons, time to plan worship, time to get a little
ahead of the Christmas rush.
And then….you can probably imagine what
happened. My unscheduled Advent Miracle was somehow taken over. Forgotten errands,
surprise visitors, and internet interruptions all conspired against my hopes
for writing time, until soon the day was ended. There had been no time to write,
no time to plan, no time even to stand up from my desk. I went to bed that night
feeling a bit anxious, knowing Christmas was one day closer, and I was not at
all prepared.
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight,” proclaims the prophet John. John himself is the one who was
foretold, the voice crying out in the wilderness, the one who by his preaching prepared
the way for Jesus’ life and ministry—but these words are meant for us, not for
him. “Prepare the way,” preaches John. The Lord is coming. Things are about to
change! And we have work to do before He gets here. But what does that look like?
We know what it looks like to prepare
for Christmas with family and friends. There’s baking and cooking, cleaning and
shopping. For those of us living far from home, there are travel arrangements
to make. For students, there are end of semester papers to write and exams to
take.
But this holiday busyness isn’t the preparation
John’s talking about.
Scripture tells us John went all over
the region preaching a message of repentance and forgiveness of sins. That doesn’t
sound much like decking the halls, does it? Preparing for the Lord’s coming,
according to John, is not about adding ornaments to make the world look prettier,
or hanging lights to make our lives look less broken. Rather, we prepare be the
way by removing obstacles that stand in the way of receiving Jesus and his
message—especially the ones in our hearts.
At our Tuesday morning prayer service
here at Redeemer, one of the worshipers was surprised to see “Joy to the World”
located in the Advent section of our Lutheran hymnal. “Isn’t this a Christmas
song?” she asked.
True, it is usually sung at Christmas.
But I suspect “Joy to the World” made its way into the Advent section of our
hymnal because of one line in the first verse:
(Sing it with me, and see if you can
recognize the Advent bit…)
Joy to the world, the Lord is come
Let earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare Him room
And Heaven and nature sing…
“Let every heart prepare Him room…” What
does a heart prepared for Jesus look like? What does it look like to make room
for Jesus?
I know there’s a lot of stuff in my
heart that has to go.
One of those things that needs to be cleared
out is judgment of others. To be honest, living in Jerusalem has not helped in
this regard. I find that walking through the Holy City cultivates really unholy
things in my heart. I’m constantly judging others, trying to put them in the
right place. What religion are you? What language do you speak? Do we share the
same political views? Are you a tourist, and if so, are you going to walk
slowly in front of me the whole way to work, or might you move out of the way
soon?
Another thing that could go so that my
heart can prepare room for Jesus is despair over the state of the world. I’m
not sure, really, that humanity is any worse today than it has been in past centuries.
There has always been war. There has always been hatred. There has always been greed
and indifference and oppression. But wow, today we are confronted with it constantly.
Our brokenness is on full view, live streamed and tweeted so we don’t miss a
single awful moment. Often, my broken heart takes a turn and becomes a cynical
one, a self-concerned and self-protecting one, maybe even a fearful one.
And yet: “Do not be afraid” says
Jesus. “I will be with you always, to the end of the age.”
So, what does it look like to prepare
the way? What does it look like to prepare Him room in our hearts?
It looks like repentance. It means naming
and acknowledging the stuff that lives in our hearts, the stuff that is not
from God but is from our own fear and self-interest. John preached a baptism of
repentance and forgiveness to prepare the way, because we can’t really hear or
receive the Good News that in Christ, our sins are forgiven, if we have not acknowledged
that we need forgiveness. We can’t receive the Good News that by our baptisms,
we have eternal life—if we still think we will live forever by our own
willpower. We can’t receive the Good News that every valley shall be filled, and
every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made
straight, and the rough ways made smooth; if we have not confessed the ways we admire
and even worship the mighty, the crooked, and the rough in the world.
For this reason, each week (or nearly
each week) we begin our Sunday liturgy with a prayer of confession. Before we
sing, before we pray, before we hear the Scripture and (hopefully) hear a
sermon that proclaims Jesus, crucified and risen, confess our sins. We begin with
a moment of honesty about our brokenness—both the brokenness of the world, and
of our hearts and lives. In this way, we prepare room in our hearts to hear the
Good News that in Christ we are made whole.
Of course, it’s one thing to join in a
corporate prayer of confession at the beginning of a worship service. It’s another
thing to truly repent, to really face our individual need to be forgiven.
It’s not always easy to forgive – but it can be even harder to be forgiven.
Theologian Henri Nouwen wrote,
“In forgiving we are still in control, “I
forgive you.” But to be forgiven by you means first of all I have to say ,“I’m
sorry. There is something that I didn’t do for you.” That is hard and puts me
in a vulnerable position, in a dependent position. I have handed you over for
suffering…Somehow I have failed you. I am
sorry I failed you. I am sorry that I was the kind of mother, or father, or
friend, or brother, or sister, or neighbor, whatever that I wanted to be. Can
you forgive me? It is not just asking the individual. It is having the ability
to say, “God, can you forgive me?” Can I be open to forgiveness? Then your heart
can move from the hardened heart to a heart of flesh.”
One week about a decade ago, when I
was an intern pastor in Chicago, I was asked to give the sermon while my
supervising pastor was out of town. I was very excited, as it was one of the
first times I had preached. I spent the whole week preparing—reading commentaries,
translating from the Greek, consulting with fellow seminarians, even memorizing
the entire Gospel text.
When Sunday morning rolled around, I
got up early and prepared my kids for church, too. They were about 8 and 10
years old, and not always easy to get out the door. But this morning, I was on
it. We got in the car and started the long drive from Chicago’s south side to
the north side, where the church was located.
Traffic was not too bad, and I was
feeling pretty proud of myself, so as a treat for the kids I stopped at Dunkin
Donuts. Why not? It would take a few minutes, but I was prepared for the day.
I had just pulled away from the
drive-thru window when my phone rang. It was the church.
“Carrie, you all right?”
“Yep!” I said, cheerfully. “Just down
the road. Stopped for donuts.”
“Um, ok” said the voice on the other
end. “We were just wondering, since it’s about time for the sermon to start.
Should we sing another hymn?”
And then I realized: In all my preparation,
I had forgotten to set my clock ahead. It was time to “Spring Forward”. The Sunday
service was well under way, and I was eating a donut.
I hung up the phone and drove as quickly
(and safely) as possible to the church. I felt terrible. The closer I got to
the church, the more my stomach hurt. I was prepared for disappointed looks and
harsh words and wondered if this might even mean I would fail my internship.
But as I walked into the worship space
and stepped sheepishly into the pulpit, prepared for hearing condemnation, the
congregation just said “Good morning, Carrie! How were the donuts?” There were
smiles and laughter all around. And many month of teasing…
Love was born there that day.
Grace was born.
Forgiveness was born.
Jesus was born in the church and in my
heart that day… and his love was so much more than I was prepared for.
Let us pray:
We
praise and thank you, Creator God, for you have not left us alone. Each year
you come to us, Emmanuel, God with us in a manger. Each time you come to us in
the broken bread and the cup we share. In time or out of time, you will be
revealed, and we shall see you face to face. Prepare our hearts to receive you.
Amen.
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