December 4, 2005

Advent 2

How many of you have seen the TV show: Extreme Makeover – Home Edition?  On this “reality TV” show, the producers choose some well-deserving family who are in a difficult life situation, and they reward them with an extreme home makeover.  They whisk the family away for a week vacation while a crew comes in to work on their existing house.  They begin by completely destroying the house, or most of it.  Then, they rebuild a beautiful dream home that will help the particular family out with their special needs.  It obviously brings much joy.

Our souls also need an extreme makeover!  There is a lot of ugly clutter and difficulty in our life that is a result of our sinful nature.  Without Christ, our souls are in some pretty bad shape.  They need a makeover.  A complete one!  They need Christ to come into them and make them into a beautiful perfect home for Him!  The season of Advent, the season in which we wait for Christ to come, is about preparing our souls for Him.  It’s about gutting all the ugly clutter from our hearts, and making them ready for Jesus.  It’s about an extreme makeover for our soul!

The host for the original show was John the Baptist.  It was a bit less glitzy and materialistic, but he began the concept years ago:  Extreme Makeover – Advent Edition.  John, son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, cousin of Jesus, was the forerunner to the Messiah whom God promised to send hundreds of years before he ever was born.  His job, as outlined by Isaiah 700 years earlier, was to “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.”

In those days, when a King was traveling to a certain country, messengers would be sent out ahead to get people to repair the roads on which the King would be traveling.  Give the roads a makeover.  Find any bumps or stumps?  Level them!  Find any potholes?  Fill them in!  Make the paths straight!  Smooth!  Perfect!  Get them ready for the King to come!  John’s mission was the same:  He was sent ahead of Jesus to prepare the hearts of people for this King’s coming.

How?  Smoothing the bumps and filling the holes!  By preaching a message of REPENTANCE!  Repentance has two parts.  1) A Godly Sorrow Over Sin - Smoothing the bumps.  2) Trust in God’s Forgiveness – filling the holes.  This extreme soul makeover was important to prepare the people for Jesus’ first coming.  It is just as important for us!  As we make all the outward preparations that we do for Christmas; decorating, buying gifts, planning parties, etc, we more importantly need to prepare our hearts!

First, we need to smooth the bumps: Renounce our Sinful Ways.  The first part of repentance is godly sorrow over sin. John came to point out bluntly to people who were pretty confident in themselves that they had all failed God and were in need of his mercy.  We have too!  You‘ve heard it said: "Don't try to impress God with your works" or "Don't attempt to please God with your merits" or “Don't try to work your way to heaven by keeping God’s rules.” But is it possible we could look at each other, and at our own lives, and ask: “Who's trying?”

You know what God’s Word has told you to do.  You know what you’re supposed to do.  You know you are supposed to be patient with others when they frustrate you.  Hold back from anger when they tick you off.  Help people who don’t deserve it.  Give care to people who can’t care for themselves.  Honour God with the best of your time, talents and treasures.  Put God first, others second, and yourself last.  Keep the materialistic things of this world in their place.

But what do you end up doing??  You lose your temper with people in a heartbeat.  You maybe even smile at them when you would like to kill them.  You avoid helping when you know you should.  (By screening calls, looking the other way, pretending not to hear or see.)   You are great at making excuses!  (Company is in town, kid has a BD party, this is our morning to sleep, I’m too busy right now with other things).  And putting others first?  We all know who is first!  I am!  (When you look at a group picture that you are in, who is the first person you look at?)  And you’re not materialistic?  Should we tour each other’s homes and test that?

Friends, we all have bumps in the Lord’s road to our hearts.  Actually, huge roadblocks!  Ugly sinfulness that makes our roads impassable!  Our hearts unlivable!  We aren’t worthy of Jesus!  Not even to tie his sandals!  We need an extreme makeover!  We need some road construction.  We need to repent!  Without repentance, we aren’t ready for Christ’s coming.  So let’s REPENT!  Confess your sins!  Admit them to God.  Be sorry for the way that you have grieved God!  Christ is coming!  Living in sinfulness is no way to be ready for Him!

John the Baptist gave us the way to be ready.  Repenting!  Stop doing what we have been doing wrong!  Realize that we are offending a holy God!  Be truly sorry for your sins and stop doing them.  That was the first part of John’s message. Here’s the second.  Filling those holes in the road.  Looking to your Saviour in faith. Trusting you’re forgiven.

A man once owned a large expensive clock crafted in Switzerland. He kept the clock in a window, where it was seen by passersby who set their watches by it. But something was wrong with the clock. Its hands habitually showed the wrong time. So the man spent considerable energy every day in turning the clock’s hands to the right positions. This went on for several years, which kept the owner weary. One day someone suggested, “Instead of wasting your energy in correcting the hands, why don’t you fix the clock’s inner parts?” “What a tremendous idea!” the owner exclaimed in astonishment and delight. “I never thought of that!” 

God did not intend to make a few cosmetic changes by sending Christ into the world. God intended nothing less than to change our inner parts, our hearts, our broken standing with Him, with his love! That’s why each Advent we encounter this character John the Baptist with his call to repentance. It is to remind us that Christmas isn’t simply about candy canes and reindeer and snowflakes and colored lights. It is about a righteous God who loves humanity so much that He sent His Son to redeem us from our sins!  This is the heart of Advent.  This rebuilding is the most important part of our “extreme makeover.”

The first part of repentance is having Godly sorrow over sin.  The second is trusting, believing in your hearts, that you are forgiven because of Jesus.  Notice the first verse of this text, the first verse of the book of Mark.  “The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  This is the beginning of the good news that comes from Jesus!  He came into this world to do what was necessary to make peace between us and God again!  And John’s message didn’t end with condemnation!  His baptism of repentance was for the forgiveness of sins!

Baptism, the one John was doing, the one Jesus told his disciples to do, the one we do today, forgives sins!  You have been baptized, right?  Then your sins are forgiven!  Your baptism makes that message sure!  So does this gospel about Jesus Christ!  You see, because of what Jesus did, He gave baptism its power!  Baptism would have no power without Jesus’ death and resurrection.  It would just be water.  But with Him, it is a washing of rebirth!

Because Jesus is powerful!  John couldn’t rightfully tie his shoelaces.  Jesus is the Son of God.  He defeated the devil!  He defeated the one who tries to tempt you and drag you down into doubt and disbelief.  That means that you are a new person!  Your soul has had an extreme makeover!  When He leads you to put your sins behind you and trust in the forgiveness that Jesus won for you, then you are ready for Him!  You are ready for Advent!  For Christmas!  Then John the Baptist’s message from God has done its work in your heart.

Sue Kidd, in one of her books, recalls her youth and how she would prepare for Christmas. In early December, she would sit by the wooden nativity set clustered under their Christmas tree and think over the last year of her life. She would think deeply about Christmas and the coming of Jesus.  She remembers, one time, visiting a monastery a couple weeks before Christmas. As she passed a monk walking outside, she greeted him with, "Merry Christmas." The monk's response caught her off guard a bit. "May Christ be born in you," he replied. 

His words seemed strange and peculiar at the time. What did he mean, "May Christ be born in you?" At the time she was unsure of what he meant, but now, years later, sitting beside the Christmas tree, she felt the impact of his words. She discovered that Advent is a time of spiritual preparation. It is also a time of transformation.  Time for a makeover.  It is discovering our soul’s need for God and letting Christ be born in our waiting heart.  It’s a time of repentance.  Know that Christ, who was born, was born for you!   Amen.

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