One year, on Christmas Eve, a mother was running furiously from store to store, trying to get those last-minute gifts.  Suddenly, she realized she’d lost track of her little 3-year-old son.  In a panic, she retraced her steps and found him standing with his little nose pressed flatly against a frosty window.  He was gazing at a manger scene.  When he heard his mother call his name, he turned and shouted in innocent glee: “Look, Mommy!  It’s JESUS!  Baby Jesus is in the hay!”  The harried mom grabbed his arm and jerked him away, snapping, “We don’t have time for all that!  Can’t you see that Mommy’s trying to get ready for Christmas!?!”

Since when has taking time to look at the baby Jesus gotten in the way of getting ready for Christmas?  It’s actually been a problem for too long, hasn’t it?  And to be honest, it’s something that you and I have been guilty of too.  Even if we haven’t spoken the exact words the harried mother did to her little boy, we have been guilty of leaving the baby Jesus out of our Christmas preparations, haven’t we?  And that is not the way to be truly prepared.  Today we are going to talk about How to be Prepared for Christmas.  And being prepared for Christmas must involve taking the road to Bethlehem to see what it’s all about…

Need some directions?  All of the Gospel writers would give you the same directions:  “You want to go to Bethlehem, eh?  Tell you what to do: go on out to the desert, outside the safe walls of Jerusalem.  Keep going until you get to the Jordan River.  You’ll know it when you see it.  It’s the only river around.  You’ll find a man there – strange looking guy wearing animal skins – standing knee deep in the water, baptizing folks right and left.  That’ll be John the Baptist.  You ask him how to get to Bethlehem.  If you want to get to Bethlehem, you have to start there at the Jordan with John.  He’s the only one who can help you get there…”

John the Baptist points the way to Bethlehem.  This voice in the wilderness tells us how to be ready for the coming Savior.  John the Baptist shows us How to be Prepared for Christmas.  John was a voice.  A voice proclaiming the message of God, fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah hundreds of years old.  And this Voice of God was “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”  The first part of being prepared for Christmas is repenting.

One critic said he had gone to many churches and heard the preacher say: “Don’t try to impress God with your good works” or “Don’t attempt to please God with your merits” or “Don’t try to keep the rules in order to win your way to heaven.”  And he looked around at the slumbering gatherings of apathetic, casual Christians, and wondered: “Who’s trying?”

You and I have plenty of reasons to repent.  Not only have we regularly left Jesus out of our Christmas celebration, but we have been selfish, thinking more about how things affect us.  We have been impatient with our spouses, our children, our friends.  We have let anger control our thoughts, the words we have spoken, and our deeds of revenge.  We have been apathetic when we should be on fire, and frazzled with worry when we should have been calm with trust.

We need to begin preparing for Christmas by repenting.  Repenting is a change of one’s mind.  It is a 180 degree turning around.  A turning away from sin and turning toward that which cleanses sin.  When you repent, God changes your mind about sin.  You no longer find pleasure in it, but realize it is a cause of eternal damnation.  God also changes your mind about salvation.  You no longer think you will get to heaven by being good.  You turn to a Savior for forgiveness.  And now, as a new person, God changes your mind about the way you want to live.

Back in John’s day, messengers were sent ahead to tell the people to prepare their roads for the King to travel through their country.  Since Christ the King was coming into the world, John was sent to prepare the hearts of people for the coming of their Lord.  Fill in the valleys, level the mountains, straighten the crooked paths, and make the rough places smooth.  In other words, people, REPENT!  Jesus is coming!  Prepare your heart through repentance!

What a message for us at Advent!  We sing “Let every heart, prepare Him room…”  We might do well to say “Let every heart get out the bulldozers and backhoes, the rock crushers and road graders!”  There are mountains and hills that need to come down!  Mountains of racism, sexism, ageism, and any other “ism” that blocks our way to healthy relationships with one another and with the Lord.  There are mountains of selfishness, greed, anger, and impatience that make it difficult for the Lord to come into our hearts. Bulldoze them!

There are crooked places to be made straight.  Yes, there is perversity among people we would never think, even in our own hearts.  Fine exteriors often mask rotten interiors of abuse, neglect, immorality, and violence.  What is perverse and crooked inside us must be straightened out!  There are also rough places to be made smooth – rough places that have come because of oppression and injustice.  There is work to do!  Bring on the heavy equipment!

Finally, there are valleys to be filled.  Valleys of depression, despair, loneliness, grief, pain, and worst of all, guilt.  These valleys can keep us from the rich relationship the Savior offers and from enjoying the good news and hope that our faith in Him brings us.  Let these valleys be filled with the love and forgiveness of God!  Let every heart prepare Him room!  Let the Voice in the Wilderness prepare us for the coming of our King!

And don’t forget the last part of his message – a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Finally, Jesus came to take away your sins.  So in order to be prepared for Christmas, we need to trust his forgiveness.  This is the first and best gift of Christmas.  God the Holy Spirit comes into our messed up hearts and leads us to trust that God has forgiven us through Jesus.  Friends, Jesus came into this world for you.  You are forgiven for your failures.  Trust it.  That will fill those “valleys” in your heart with a peace like nothing else can!

That is what happened to George Frederic Handel.  He was frustrated with himself, cut off from other people, at odds with God.  He was sick, his eyes were beginning to fail him.  He was out of money.  He felt empty, dejected, lonely, hopeless, and miserable.  His creativity had disappeared.  But then Christ was born anew in his heart.  God led him to trust in forgiveness through Jesus.  Christ entered his heart and made him a new person.  Where there had been strife, there was now peace.  Where there had been fear, there was now courage.  Where there had been emptiness, there was now incredible creativity.  He grabbed his pen and paper and composed one of the most beloved pieces of music ever written: The Messiah.  The ultimate ode to the forgiveness the Savior won for us and the “Hallelujahs” that brings into our lives.

Trusting that we have been forgiven, that our valleys of guilt have been filled up by the amazing love of our Lord, gives us reason to live in thankfulness!  That is how to be prepared for Christmas.  The fruit of repentance means that we have changed our minds about the way we want to live now.  We now live wanting to love God.  Wanting to love others.  We live full of hope and peace and joy.  Because our hearts have been prepared for our Savior to come in. 

And then, as our text concludes, “all mankind will see God’s salvation.”  We will see God’s salvation when He brings us to faith in the forgiveness Christ won for us.  And the rest of mankind will see God’s salvation when they see the light and love of Jesus shining through us.

During the recent recession, a TV commentator began his newscast by saying, “Due to the current financial crisis, the light at the end of the tunnel will be turned off.”  That’s what the world does. The world offers no hope.  No peace inside.  No peace with God.  No forgiveness.  Nothing to really look forward to.  No light at the end of the tunnel.  The world turns off lights.  But Christians turn them on!  Look around your neighbourhoods this season.  Look at the lights.  Light, especially light at the end of a tunnel, represents hope.  Something that pierces the darkness.  There is no light like the light of Jesus’ forgiveness which has pierced the darkness of your sin and guilt!  There is light at the end of the tunnel, and Christmas reminds us of that!

So let’s be prepared for Christmas this year!  Let’s take the road down to the Jordan River and listen to John the Baptist.  His message prepares us.  Repent of your sins and trust that you’re forgiven.  Let God prepare your hearts for your coming Savior.  Then “go to Bethlehem” and rejoice in the gift you have been given!  Bring some others with you, so that “all mankind will see God’s salvation.”

Outside our house at Christmas, we put up a lighted nativity display of the baby Jesus, Joseph, Mary, and the shepherds.  It is lit from the inside to remind us and our neighbourhood of the light Jesus brings into the world.  It also has a spotlight shining on it to remind us that we also want to show people the light of the world.  Brightly lit, so that “all mankind will see God’s salvation.”  High winds whipping down Beacham Street have made it difficult to keep it from blowing over.  We have tried many things to keep it anchored in place.

And I think there’s a lesson here.  People have often let the winds of time and of the world topple over the Christmas story as an insignificant message.  It is no more to them than our plastic lawn ornaments that will once again be stowed in the garage after Christmas is over.  So when I wonder why it is so important to anchor it, to keep it in place, I realize that for us, it is more than a few plastic lawn ornaments.  It is a representation of our faith.  God has led us to anchor our very lives to the promise of Jesus and the confident conviction that “God is With Us.”

And so, in the many ways that you prepare for Christmas, let God know, and let people know, that for you, Christmas is about the birth of our Savior in Bethlehem.  It is about the peace with God that has brought us.  And if your child presses his face up against a frosty window to gaze upon the baby Jesus, stop what you are doing and join him.  That is How to be Prepared for Christmas!   Amen.