GET READY, JESUS IS ON HIS WAY Bible Study: Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11, Psalm 85, 2 Peter 3:8-14, Mark 1:1-8 When you want to excel in an examination, do you just wake up in the morning and walk into the exam hall without first doing any sort of preparation? Or when you want to eat a good meal, do you simply go to the market and buy raw meat, raw tomatoes, raw pepper etc and start throwing them just like that into your mouth? Or when you desire to embark on journey, do you simply jump into the next available bus on your way there without thinking of what you would need when you get there? Dear friends in Christ, nothing good happens without preparation and the better our preparation is, the better the final output. Today, the church is asking us to prepare for Christmas. You may want to ask, do we need to prepare for Christmas? Isn’t it simply a day Christ is born? Since Christ is the one celebrating birthday, why can’t I leave him to prepare for his own birthday himself? It doesn’t work like that however because unlike any other person’s birthday, you and I are the direct hosts for this birthday. Christ is actually coming into our hearts to celebrate his birth, your house has been chosen and it is going to happen simultaneously in the homes of all those who prepare well. Something will happen at Christmas, there would be a special flow of grace, a special aroma of peace, a special flavor of joy but then you would not notice all of these if you are not well prepared. Preparing for Christmas starts on a physical note and I bet a lot of us have started already. If you drive around the city now and walk into banks, restaurants and other public places, you would see beautiful decorations, special lights and other eye-catching stuff being put up for Christmas. But then, we dare not stop at the physical level only. Our preparation for Christmas is incomplete when all we do is to repaint our houses and buy new clothes and new shoes or make our hair to look like celebrities. Our preparation for Christmas is in fact useless if all we do bothers only on externalities because the real preparation is in the heart. When the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her she would be the mother of Jesus Christ, she asked the Angel, “How can this come about since I do not know man”. Then the Angel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and she would be overshadowed by the power of the Most High, and then conceive, and that even her kinswoman Elizabeth, who was once called barren, is now six months pregnant because nothing is impossible for God. And Mary said: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Jesus Christ took flesh in her womb without any physical contact, her purity of heart, her faith in God, her acceptance of the word, her statement, “let it be done to me” was all that was needed for Jesus to enter her womb. This Christmas, Jesus wants to enter our hearts. He wants us to be born again in our lives. Jesus wants to transform us. He wants to renew our spiritual zeal. Jesus wants us to become better Christians, better people of God, better citizens of heaven. Jesus wants to redeem us from the captivity of sinfulness, the chains of evil and the clutches of Satan. Jesus wants to take us out of the bondage that makes us return to our sins again and again as a dog returns to its vomit. Jesus wants to free us and bring us to a life beyond the material level where we shall experience profound happiness and peace not based on how much money we have but based on how close we are to God. It is only when this becomes our story that our Christmas will make sense and for this to happen, then we have to prepare to welcome the baby Jesus. How do we prepare? The answer lies in today’s Gospel passage: ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR SINS AND REPENT. Over the last few days, I have had to do a thorough examination of conscience which has led me write down my sins on a piece of paper which I then titled ‘WATCH OUT AGAINST THESE THINGS’. I really desire that my Christmas this year should be different from every other Christmas I have ever had, like Mary, I desire that Christ may find my heart clean enough to come in and stay. It is time for us to do a clean-up, a time for us to take out those things that Jesus would not like to see when he comes. As Isaiah says, “It is time to level the valleys and bring down the mountains, it is time to straighten the rugged surfaces.” It is time for us to acquire new virtues, this is what filling the valleys is all about, a time to be kind and more helpful to people around us. Bringing down the mountains means, it is time to drop our bad habits, it is time to cut off from certain inclinations to unrighteous deeds and thoughts. Making smooth the rugged places would be watching out for those ‘tiny tiny little sins’ which we often dismiss yet they make our life more unpleasant to God. Just imagine waking around town on a new shoe with sand underneath your stocks. No matter how small the quantity of sand may be, as far as there is sand at all, you will never be comfortable until you dust it away from the shoe. This is why we cannot afford to habour sin at all as we prepare for Christ’s coming. Let us try not to be carried away by materialism this Christmas and the blind pursuit of money at all costs because these things we see will not last. St. Peter warns, everything would be destroyed, and this gradual destruction has started already, the things we valued so much yesterday are now pieces of rags today, the clothes we almost died to get just a few years ago are now useless and out of fashion, the cars we used to dream about yesteryears are now like caskets to us today, even the naira itself is losing its value and the price of oil dropping meaning it is no longer the gold we used to think it was. All that you see and desire around you right now will someday become ashes and useless but one thing remains forever; that is your soul when it is in tune with your creator. Hence we must prepare for Christ’s birthday by conducting ourselves in holiness and walk in the light of God. Let us Pray: Lord Jesus, may we be fully prepared to receive you into our hearts this Christmas that as you are born again in us, we too may become born again in the Spirit. Amen. Good morning. Be Happy. Have Faith. Live Positive. It is well with you. Happy Sunday.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 05:12:57 +0000