As I write the title of this blog, my mind and heart swing into rhythm with the song by the same name from the musical Godspell. Even though I first heard the song in high school, it still impacts my spirit. Maybe its powerful sway over me comes from the words themselves. My mind reels wondering how am I preparing the way of the Lord within my life. How are we as a nation preparing the way of the Lord through this cultural season, we find ourselves living?
The decorations are hung. The presents are nearly all purchased. Menus are being planned. The baking is on standby as items are gathered. But I wonder how all this preparing opens the way for the Lord? Could the glitter and glitz of sparkling lights and shopping sales be an enticement to our spirit which impacts our intentionality to open interior space for the new birthing of Jesus? Does the holiday feasting preparations aide us in noticing the creative energy of Christ coming among us?
The Scripture
This week it was my honor and privilege to meet a friend and practice imaginative prayer with Mark 1:1-8. We pondered questions of what it would have been like to actually be in the crowd and hear John the Baptizer preach. How did his passionate voice crying out to the crowd entice the spirits of others? Was his passionate call to the community for repentance born from his compassion for God’s people? What was it like to consider being part of the crowd from Jerusalem? Would I have come forward for baptism and repentance?
The author of the Gospel of Mark invites us to consider how John the Baptizer was preparing people to get ready for the coming of the Lord. First, John the B. offered a very clear call for individuals and community alike to repent. This reorientation of priorities, attitudes, and motivations was very life transforming. It cleared the cluttered thoughts and anxieties of the “shoulds,” ‘oughts,” and “if onlys” along with the guilt and shame from things done and left undone. Repentance brought the people to a place of opened heartedness. In this newly opened heartedness, they were ready to receive new ways of engaging others, self, and God.
Mark makes an intentional point to comment on John the B’s lifestyle. He wore simple clothes and ate simple food. John the B’s lifestyle of simplicity opened himself to have ample room for God’s presence, power, and energy to rise within his life. He did not try on his own power to elevate his life circumstance by the glamor and glitz of cultural expectations.
Today’s Prayer Practice
Today you are invited to make a plan for the next three weeks of Advent; that is for the remaining weeks before Christmas . The plan is for more simplicity within your life. Consider three ways (one for each week) you could simplify your lifestyle and circumstance. This could be anything from clearing out the clutter of a room within the house, to releasing the anxious load of worry and disorientation which may clutch at your heart.
But before you contemplate your plan toward simplicity, ponder what and how you are invited to the spiritual discipline of repentance. Repentance is not a very popular spiritual discipline in the United States. Folks generally think we are doing fairly well in following Jesus, so why dwell on negativity. Yet we are not perfect people, nor are our communities of faith perfect. As you sit down to make a three week plan toward simplifying your space and or life circumstance consider what it is that you are being invited to repent from.
May the gifts of repentance and simplicity assist you in preparing the way of the Lord through this Advent season.
Enjoy Praying.
