Weekly Reflection

In this week’s Gospel, we hear of John the Baptist and his proclamation of the coming of Jesus. While our last reflection speaks more to being vigilant for the coming of Jesus, this week, we are called to listen and prepare for Jesus. John comes from the wilderness wearing a garment of camel-skin and living off locusts and wild honey to declare, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight.” He then adds to this, saying, “Someone is following me… I am not fit to kneel down and undo the straps of his sandals.” Later, we would learn that this is Jesus.

There are a number of elements that can be unpacked (not least his fashion sense). First is that John had absolute faith in Jesus even before he had seen miracles or had hard proof. The second, and perhaps more relevant during Advent, is that he saw himself as someone who would prepare the way for Jesus. We don’t hear a lot about the ‘word of mouth’ that would have been swirling around before many of Jesus’ visits in towns or the messages that were proclaimed on his behalf.

Having read this passage, we might consider – so what does this call us to do? Our job as people of faith is not necessarily to do God’s work for him per se. We cannot change the world by ourselves, and we need to accept what is within our realm of control. That said, we can prepare the soil so that God can plant the seeds. In our small ways, we can make the world around us more open to Jesus’ message and live out his message. This may be through simply showing kindness to people when they are vulnerable, having chats with friends about your faith, or opening ourselves to new experiences and counterintuitive messages. May we ready ourselves in every way for this coming of Christ this Christmas.