[ Today's Readings ]
John the Baptist is sent to prepare us to receive Jesus.
Lo, I will send you
Elijah, the prophet,
Before the day of the LORD comes,
the great and terrible day,
To turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,
and the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike
the land with doom.
From this we learn that we must not simply let Christmas take us by surprise. God sends to forerunner because we need to prepare. He tells us to get ready precisely because we are not ready, we need to be, and we can be.
The plans of God seem almost too amazing to us. We are ready, like Zechariah, to question them and to doubt them. But as Christmas draws so near God helps Zechariah silence his negative talk. Spiritually, he can help us do the same. We can learn not to use our voices to speak words of distrust and doubt but rather to speak words of agreement with the plan of God.
He asked for a tablet and wrote, “John is his name,”
and all were amazed.
Immediately his mouth was opened, his tongue freed,
and he spoke blessing God.
We hear that we are not ready and become fearful. But let us not give voice to this fear. Let us instead agree with God who tells us that he himself will make us ready for Christmas, ready to receive our Savior.
He will sit refining and purifying silver,
and he will purify the sons of Levi,
Refining them like gold or like silver
that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD.
So let us prepare to receive the messenger of the covenant whom we desire. He is coming soon. Let us lift up our heads and see. Our redemption is near at hand!
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