Prepare ye the way of the Lord

Prepare the way of the child

Christmas is about the birth of Christ, but Christmas is also about us. We celebrate an event that has changed us all. Eternity, holiness and sinlessness have knocked on our doors. Life is not a playground for arbitrary exercises of trial and error. Life is deeply meaningful and holy in itself. There is a purpose for all of us, at the same time the freedom of choice is seemingly endless. It was like that and it was above all meant like that from the beginning of creation before things went horribly wrong, but Christ has come to confirm this glorious beginning and has put his seal on all creation.

When I look into the eyes of a child I see God – God become a human being. Isaiah says that “(world) authority rests upon his shoulders” (Isaiah 9.6). In other words, the coming of the child Jesus reminds us of the infinite value of a child, of an orphan, of a single parent, of a widow, or any other seemingly powerless and poor person, or any other person, is a value that has to be reckoned with also by every political authority; because, ultimately, power is a loan, and that loan is given by that higher power that is God. Christ did not come just to create an atmosphere of love and acceptance in the church, which he indeed did. Even more so he came in order to challenge those in authority, to tell all those who are now bursting with pride because of their power (also democratically elected people are not always free from such a pride), that their power is but a short loan.

We cannot fathom, or understand the mystery of the incarnation, of the fact that God has become flesh (has become a human). It is one of those paradoxes in which a Christian is stuck for good. Please do not try to harmonize this paradox! World authority is there – the child, the son, is there. It opens up for a situation of extreme vulnerability. The one who has the ultimate power does not make use of it when most needed. He just says to Pilate: “My kingship is not of this world” (John 18.36). But, as some will realise also in unexpected places, the values of this kingship are badly needed in this world. Christ is the hope of the world ever since the shepherds heard about his birth at Beit Sahour in Bethlehem.

Christ is the ultimate gift of God to the world, to us. And rightly so, our proclamation in the church must be one of grace and forgiveness as pure gifts which we have not deserved in any sense of the word. However, this very focus on the gift has made us unprepared for the real task – the task of preparing the way. We must do what Isaiah says, “in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord” (Isaiah 40.3). The vision of Isaiah in his prophetic book (even though the whole book of 66 chapters may have three different authors) is completely apt for today: his description of the intricacy and beauty of God’s creation, his message that the Lord is to come, that we must prepare the way by speaking the truth to power (as he did), hold a very high ethical standard in our lives, have an uncompromising faith in the one God, understand that faith in God and a fundamental ethics born out of that faith inevitably leads to strong solidarity for social justice. All these things you can simply read about in Isaiah, a book that was written or conceptualised about 2600 years ago. If one takes Isaiah as an agenda for preparing the way of the child born in Bethlehem, the church could at best be the base where one is sustained by the life-giving sources (in traditional church terms, the Word of God and the Sacraments), but the work as such will be out there, from the halls of fame and power to more humble places; the latter will ultimately be a preference, but the gift we are preparing the way of, the Christ child, is for all.