HAVE TO DO SOMETHING

Something better is coming, and is coming soon. But that “something” requires something of us! Not just a vaccine from the scientists, or a new public policy strategy. That something better requires a deep conversion of our hearts and behavior. This Advent time is very much about watching and waiting for what God will do. But it is every bit as much about re-orienting what we are willing to do right now. To watch and to wait is not basically about sitting around. It’s about getting ready.

Some of my most aggravating moments of life are spent in waiting rooms – the doctor or the dentist or the car service shop, not only because I have shown up on time and the service providers have not, but because I have nothing to do during that void, except to reflect about how angry it all makes me, and there’s nothing to do. During this COVID season they have even taken away the stale magazines to read. Advent waiting is not like the stifling life of a waiting room. It’s about transformation. We are meant to emerge from the experience as different from when we entered into it. But that won’t happen if all we do now is stare at the ceiling until God does something. Advent is not a passive time. It is a moment of re-awakening and re-dedication.

Something better is coming soon, but that “something” requires something of us. Today. And that something can best be described as justice. We hear the voice of the Prophet Isaiah throughout this season as a constant drumbeat to become people of justice. “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make a strait highway for God! Tell the people what is true!” It’s a call to action, whether in speech or in daily commitment. Advent is about determining to make things right in this world – never without God’s grace, but never without our human efforts alongside that grace. They require one another. God has asked and invited us to do our part. Advent is an opportunity to say “yes.”

Today’s gospel of Mark begins by quoting Isaiah in the same sentence: “Prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight his paths.” What exactly do we imagine this command to mean? It surely does not mean to sit back and look for something to happen. We are not spectators in the drama of God’s in-breaking into the Kingdom of justice. We are the actors, the means through which the Kingdom comes to be in this world. If we are not prepared for this responsibility, we’re in the wrong church, worshipping the wrong God. Christianity is not a spectator sport. It’s a solemn dedication to making life right. It’s about justice.

And how might that look exactly? I guess that depends upon what each of us is in a position to do, whether in prayer, in work, in ministry, and in relationships. Think of all of those who rightly cry out for justice:

• The unborn
• The exploited
• The immigrant
• The racially profiled
• The abused
• The poor
• The elderly
• The chronically sick

The list is long, and our Advent responsibilities are many. This is not a season for waiting around. It is a summons to attending to the gospel’s demands of us. Something better is coming soon, but that “something” requires something of us.