Several years ago I remember seeing a bumper sticker that said, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.”
About this time of year I don’t just look busy, I am busy. And from what I see and hear around this place, so are you. We don’t just have normal employment and school work but making 4th quarter budget forecasts and end of semester exams and papers. We don’t just have practices and rehearsals but also swim meets and holiday concerts. And on top of it all we go to holiday parties and try to correspond with people whose faces we forget until we get their Christmas card, and even then the details are rather dim.
And St. Peter’s is certainly a busy place. Between the holiday bazaar and the lessons and carols and the preparations for the Christmas pageant, and the coming today of the Bishop of Myra, there is much activity. In some ways no more so than usual for St. Peter’s but the concentration of it all in a few weeks is abnormal.
What a wild, wild time.
And “in those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness.” In the wildness. In the midst of everything that was crazy. In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness. John could have done his ministry anywhere. He could have met them in their daily life of home and work and band practice and studying. He could have met them in the everyday routine of ordinary time. He could have gone to metropolitan centers like Paul or focused on one city like Stephen. But instead John drags them into the wilderness. In fact, on the banks of Jordan where he was preaching, he could not have made them travel any farther and still be in Israel. It was the furthest out of daily life that he could take them. And I think that he did it on purpose. I think that it is no accident that he dragged them out of normal life because he says, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near.”
The word repent literally means to turn around. And if his followers had done exactly what he told them to do, if they had simply turned around where they were standing they would have seen their footsteps and the journey of where they’d come and then against the horizon they would have seen the town that they’d traveled from. Their towns and homes spread out in panorama behind them. Only with the perspective of the wilderness could they see the full panorama of their daily lives. Otherwise they would have been too much in the midst of the town and village and daily life and responsibility. John had to drag them out of normality so that they could see their lives in full perspective.
But in Christianity we don’t just understand repenting at turning around. It is a special turning.
It is turning back to God. St. Augustine used to say our biggest sin is inwardcurved-ness. We turn in on ourselves and begin to think that the end of year projects and forecasts are up to us to do alone; that we set or don’t set a personal record by ourselves; that only we are putting together a party for our loved ones this year all by ourselves and it really needs to be perfect this year because this year so much is at stake. We forget that we are spinning more and more tightly in on ourselves until we’re a knot. We forget that we spin within the arms of God and forget to turn back to God.
So when John yells out repent to his followers in the wilderness, he asks for a turning around to see their lives in panorama; to see how far they’ve come things year on their journey; and to unknot themselves to turn back to God.
How, though, how do we even begin to see our lives in perspective? How do we look back across the desert of Judea to the towns glittering behind us? I think maybe, it’s by making things even wilder. Sometimes maybe, things have to get really crazy for a sense of perspective.
I was flipping channels last week and came across Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. For those of you who haven’t seen it it’s a fashion make-over show of sorts where two stylists make over an unsuspecting woman’s wardrobe. The first step in every episode of the show is where Gunn and his assistant ask the woman to take out everything in her closet and bureau so that they can see what material they have to work with. Everything is divided into piles – to give away; to mend; or to keep. Only when everything is in wild array around them can the stylists and participant see what there is to work with. It all has to be laid out for the perspective to happen.
When I hear John say, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,” I hear: clean out your closet. I hear, lay it out and make it wild so that you can see what you’ve got to work with.
I invite you to think with me for a moment. What is your closet? What is keeping you from being ready for Jesus this year? Is it actual stuff that you need to give away or give back to God; stuff to mend; and stuff keep? Is it time? Is yours an addiction or your health? Your relationships? What is your closet this year to pull out the contents of and take stock?
What in your closet needs to be given away or given back to God? What needs to be mended? What must be kept and nurtured?
It is a busy, crazy time. Yes! Absolutely. Maybe no wilder time of the year. But there is no other time when real life, normal life can be better seen against the contrast of the wildness and chaos. There is no better time to have the perspective on where we are in our lives this year and lay it all out with God.
This Advent of waiting and preparation offers us a gift of perspective. Jesus is coming, and we are busy, and it will get busier. But we already know the conclusion. Every episode of Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style ends on a high note. The woman has a solid wardrobe and each time is reminded of what a good, lovely, human she is and always was. Gunn and his assistant merely bring out what was there and needed some perspective to see.
And we, you and I, as Christians know the end of our story too. We await Jesus’ coming each year already knowing that the Easter resurrection has happened. We await the coming of Christ and prepare ourselves to receive him, knowing that he has already given us a wardrobe of grace and love and forgiveness. So we turn back to God and clean out our closets already loved, forgiven, and saved. You are loved. With your closet. We clean out our closets to help ourselves turn back to God, God who is always turned towards us and knows all about the closet.
We clean out our closets for perspective. We give thanks for the wild time of Advent to see our lives as they are. We prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ who has come already and holds our hand as we decide what to give away, what to mend, and what to keep.
In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,
‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” ’
Turn around and look. Clean out your closet. Jesus is coming. Jesus has come.
Thanks be to God.
