“The Promise to Make a Way”
Malachi 3:1-4
Luke 1:68-79
Philippians 1:3-6
Luke 3:1-6
Every year, on the first Friday evening of December, we here at First Church invite our children, youth, and families to make their way from the Lighting of the Merry Maple on the freezing and sometimes snow-covered town common to the warmth and light of our building.
Every year, we prepare for them. We set up tables and chairs,. We order pizza. We bake cookies and make salad. We set the water to boiling, heat up the hot chocolate, collect some crafts supplies, and get ready to welcome excited, hungry, and cold bundles of energy into the love of our community.
Every year, we prepare the sanctuary for greening. From the area behind the chancel wall, we pull out strings of lights and paper chains, wreaths and ribbons, and Christmas tree parts that have been separated, organized, and neatly labeled into seven or eight plastic garbage bags.
Every year we prepare the way of the children and families, which is not all that different from preparing the way of the Lord.
But here’s the thing: Over the years, I have discovered that after our children have been to one or two Advent parties and greenings of the sanctuary, they, too, make ready—in their own ways.
Last Sunday, a six-year-old asked if I would be putting the large Advent calendar with pockets for nativity-scene characters on my office door. He remembered it from last year and was looking forward to it.
One of our families said that, once again, they would be bringing their traditional hot chocolate. When they brought it last year, it was a huge hit.
But amid all this preparation and anticipation, there were mountains, hills, valleys, and a very crooked path standing between one 8-year-old girl and the greening of the sanctuary. Although this little girl lives for the annual greening, circumstances were such that it didn’t look like she’d be able to make it this year.
But she was not to be deterred.
“They need me,” she told her mother.
And so it was that between the girl’s determination, a mother’s love, and some delicate family negotiations, they prepared the way. And while most of the children scarfed down pizza, guzzled hot chocolate, delighted in Marie-Dominique’s delicious Christmas cookies, and answered the pastor’s silly questions about Advent, one precious little girl simply endured it all until the time arrived for what was, for her, the main event: decorating our sanctuary for Advent and Christmas.
I tell you this story not simply to warm your heart, but also because I think all of us need to be reminded—especially this year—that God’s promises of justice and peace are fulfilled when we prepare the way. God’s promises are fulfilled when we refuse to to be deterred by daunting obstacles, when we realize that all creation needs us and our willingness to become God’s messengers of liberation and salvation, when we let down our guards and open our hearts to what seems impossible.
Which is to say: God makes a way, but we have to walk it.
When the God of Israel heard the cries of his enslaved people in Egypt, for example, God didn’t strike Pharaoh dead. Instead, God called a leader, a messenger, a prophet—a partner.
And so it was that Moses returned to Egypt and told Pharaoh to let God’s people go.
When Pharaoh refused to relent, God gave Moses some tools, if you will, though Pharaoh and his people thought of them as plagues. This gave Pharaoh and the Egyptians the opportunity to change their hearts. And it gave the enslaved Israelites a sense of what God could do, along with the awareness that God was with them.
And still, even as God was making a way, Moses and the oppressed children of Israel had to step out in faith. While Pharaoh was still in power, with their spirits still crushed, with the future uncertain, and long before the waters of the Red Sea had parted, the Israelites set out for the promised land. If they were going to be truly free, they would have to leave the known behind and set out for an uncertain future. They would have to trust God to be with them and provide for them.
There is, it seems, a pattern to God’s way-making. Because God’s love for us is fierce and unending, God promises to make a way for us out of bondage and into freedom, out of brokenness and into healing, out of exile and isolation and into home and community, out of oppression and into empowerment, out of despair and into hope, out of death and into life.
You get the idea.
God promises to make a way and, at the same time, God promises us the freedom to choose.
So while we are deciding whether to accept God’s get-out-of-jail-free card, God sends messengers. Sometimes the messenger is a prophet reminding us of God’s promises. Sometimes the messenger is someone telling us to get our act together. Sometimes the messenger is a story or a whole season of stories reminding us of all the ways God’s love and grace came through for us in the past. And sometimes the messenger is a wake-up call in the form of our lives falling apart, extreme politics, or a world on fire.
Sometimes—often, even—the message is something entirely unexpected. A baby, for example.
And still: Whatever the encouragement, whatever the warnings, whatever the invitation, whatever the promise, our natural inclination is to stay right where we are. Sometimes we are so tired, the mountains so high, the injustices so great, the divisions so deep, and the policies so extreme that we cannot imagine how things will get better. Sometimes the promises of healing and newness are so outlandish that all we can do is laugh to keep from crying.
The priest Zechariah did more than laugh; he laughed at God.
No matter, God was still making a way. In that case, God was making a baby.
And by the time Elizabeth gave birth to that baby, Zechariah had stopped laughing and started trusting. Zechariah had stopped despairing and started rejoicing.
God has remembered the ancient promise, and it is coming to pass, Zechariah sang. This child—my son!—will prepare the way for God to save us from all hatred and evil. We sit in darkness now, but because God is tender and just and merciful, God’s light will shine upon us and guide us into the way of peace.
Beloveds, the dawn from on high has also broken upon us—not by way of the rich and powerful, not by way of military might or individual achievement, not by the tried-and-true ways of divide and conquer—but by way of a God who never gives up on us. By way of a God who pulls out all the stops.
By way of a God who moves into our neighborhood. By way of a God who fulfills her promise to make a way. By way of another tiny baby born into poverty, repression, danger, and a world of hurt. By way of an itinerant teacher and troublemaker who shows us the way and then promises to walk alongside us.
And still . . . the choice is ours.
The way, said the great Spanish poet Antonio Machado, is made by walking.
It is as we walk through a violent and scary world with love, hope, forgiveness, and a commitment to nonviolence that peace is made. It is as we go in faith that mountains are brought low and the lowly are lifted up. It is as we go, stumbling along by grace, that the bumps in the road are smoothed over. It is as we go, one faltering step at a time, that our wrong turns are reversed and we come back to the true path: the way of justice, peace, and love.
Prepare the way of the Lord, said the prophet.
Make his ways straight, echoed the baptizer.
Follow me, Jesus said.
Let’s go, friends. The world needs us, and we need one another.
Let’s go. The world needs our light. The world needs God’s love.
