Wednesday of the Third Week of Advent
Messengers and their messages are not always as straight forward as we would expect. Often the busyness of our day and the clutter of lives can obscure profound messages. This seems more true in this season of preparation we call Advent. The to-do-list for Christmas often gets higher priority than Advent. The contrast is striking. On one level, we are shopping, decorating, cooking, cleaning and preparing for the important celebration that is Christmas. On another level we are being called to empty ourselves to make room for the Lord in our lives.
The reading from Isaiah insists we make room for the Lord by repeating this line: “I am the Lord, and there is no other.” (Isaiah 45:6c) The Lord sent me that same message this morning through an unlikely message and messenger. My daughter wanted me to read a book to her. Although this is our bedtime ritual she insisted I read it this morning. The book is entitled, “The Night before, the Night before Christmas.” Like any good story, children’s or otherwise, we are often drawn in and caught off guard by an unexpected ending. Katie, who is six, knew the end of the story but really wanted me to experience it so I stopped what I was doing to read the story.
Quite simply, the story is of a family who are working hard to make preparations for Christmas. However, at every turn their labors did not meet their expectations for the perfect Christmas. The whole story comes to a head when the family gets home to their house being a wreck because the cat knocked the tree down and scattered the ornaments. While the family’s initial response was to think that Christmas was ruined, the Father sees things differently. He reminds them, “These things are just stuff. Christmas is about love.” He and the children quietly put the tree back up and began to read the night before Christmas. Today, my daughter was the messenger and the message was that Christmas is not about stuff, it’s about love.
Sometimes the messenger knows the power of the message; sometimes the message is what we learn by fully entering into the journey on which we have been sent. What was John the Baptist’s reason for sending disciples to Jesus? Did John really want to learn Jesus’ true identity or did he want his disciples to discover it for themselves? Sometime’s the message is best learned by way of the process of retrieving the message. The message itself may not have its fullest meaning unless it is arrived at in the context of a journey.
Prayerfully contemplate the messages and/or messengers in your midst. Is there a message that has gone unnoticed? Are you being asked to go on a journey to discover the message? Often, the Lord is doing miracles right in front of us. Lord, open our eyes today, so that we are no longer blind to the people and journeys that are leading us to You!
-Michael Montgomery