Have you prepared the way?

I know, I know….Christmas is in a few days. Who is prepared? There is baking, cooking, cleaning, wrapping, shopping, traveling….all things to do. Those all sound like I’m preparing, and I am. I’m preparing for Christmas with my family and I travel to them so I am getting my house in order to leave it and go visit another house where someone else has been preparing for my arrival. There is a big flurry of activity this time of year. The outside is all prepared, but is the inside, are our hearts all prepared for Christmas?

During all the weeks of Advent, we hear about ‘preparing the way’ the entire time. We hear it in the Old Testament- the promises to come and then we hear it about John the Baptist- he was preparing the way for Jesus. We hear in the readings about how Jesus’ way was prepared in advance- the angel announced his coming to Mary. The angel announces the arrival of John as well, the one coming before Jesus to ‘prepare the way’.

Advent is all about getting ready. I bet your house is all ready for company, for hosting, for the gatherings that will be taking place. That is certainly important, it is after all a holiday celebrating a family event- the birth of a child.

Have you been busy like me and been working too hard on all the outside stuff and not enough time on all the ‘inside stuff’? I did go on a retreat and I do have an Advent book that accompanies me each year, but it seems like I don’t have enough time to take all the quiet time I would like. Maybe that’s the point. It’s always busy. There are always things to do, yet there is the quiet place in our hearts that is just waiting for us to spend time.

We have a few more days until Christmas. I want to enjoy it this year, feel all the wonder, the joy, the fun of the season. I also want to have some quiet space to really ponder the wonder of the Christ’s birth and the events that led up to it, to really be prepared. Since that is not likely to happen in all the busy-ness, I will take the opportunity to pause as much as I can to ponder a wonderous birth and what that means to me and the world.