December 16 John the Baptist: Mark 1:1-8

Make way the path of the Lord! John the Baptist spent his entire life saying that. From the moment he was first in the same room with him, he jumped for joy while in Elizabeth's womb. He spent his entire existence telling people, "You may think I'm great because I say lots of really amazing things, but you ain't seen nothing yet."  I wonder if John had any interaction with Jesus when they were children. You would think they would being cousins and all. What were those times like? According to yesterday's gospel in the Catholic Church, (Matt 11: 2-11), I can only assume they were just like all other boys. John sent a message to Jesus from jail asking "Are you the one I've been crying out in the desert about or is there someone else coming?" That puzzles me a bit. Don't you think he would have known? Clearly Jesus didn't perform any public miracles until the wedding feast at Cana, so did he just act like a little boy? How did he react when John talked about his coming? Maybe John acted just like a little boy too. Maybe John wasn't moved to his ministry until he was an adult, but the whole leaping in the womb thing threw me off.

Either way, John had a mission. It was to tell everyone to prepare. Get ready. This is it. This is the big one. This is what we've all been waiting for! Make way. Make the paths straight, fill the valleys, make the mountains low. The visual I get from this is so appropriate. John was of course, speaking about our hearts - not the landscape. He wanted us to make it easy for the Lord to journey to us. He wanted us to remove all obstacles, all areas of sin, everything that would impede the Lord's way into our hearts.

Since it appears that John didn't know beforehand that his cousin Jesus was the Messiah, I wonder how it felt when he realized it was Him. Did he doink his forehead and say, "Duh, of COURSE it's Him! Now I see it." Think of how excited he must have been when it was revealed to him. Jesus! My cousin! HE's the one! Wow. How cool is that? God had great plans in store for John - he gave him the gift of speaking the truth - even when it was unpopular and would eventually get him beheaded. But he did his job very well. He led people to Jesus. He pointed the way to Jesus. He always focused on the coming of Jesus. If they did have interaction as children, I'll bet John's heart was always stirred when Jesus came. He just maybe didn't understand. But whatever happened, he realized that the greatest human being to ever walk the earth was here and he wanted everyone to know about it.

Imagine what it would be like if our hearts were stirred even a tiny bit as much as John's was. We'd be yelling from our rooftops that Jesus is coming! He's on his way! Symbolically, we believe His coming happens on Christmas day, but in our hearts, we have to remember that He's coming every day. He's here! He's here! During Advent, we need to prepare our hearts for that symbolic coming. We need to fill those valleys that sometimes run so deep we can't see the bottom. We need to remove those mountains that sometimes seem so high that we can't get over or around them. We need to make straight the way of the Lord so that He can enter our lives and our hearts without any impediment.

My prayer today is to be able to open my heart to God and feel the joy John must have felt the day he discovered that Jesus was the one. As the Jesse tree progresses to Christmas Eve, all of the stories are about Jesus. I hope that the next nine days are filled with wonder and expectation for the coming of the Lord.

December 12 David: 1 Sam. 17:12-51

My favorite boy wonder of the Bible - David! In my youth ministry class, we covered David at great length and I love every minute of his life as outlined in the Bible. He was a little boy when he defeated Goliath. He was a humble anointed king when he respected the unscrupulous but nonetheless elected King Saul. He was a staunch defender of God and His Kingdom and he was a sinner. In fact, he did some pretty bad things and he was punished mightily for them. Just because God loves us, doesn't mean we get away with murder (and sleeping with thy neighbor's wife). David sometimes seems superhuman. If it wasn't for his inadequacies, we would have a hard time relating to him. He loved the Lord. He defended the Lord. He ignored the Lord. He sinned against the Lord. He repented and turned back to the Lord. When you put it in those terms, I think most of us can relate.

What I love most about David though, is the passage suggested for today. He looked his giant in the eye, called on the Lord and slayed the giant. Just like that. No drama. No fanfare. He didn't want the "clothes" he was supposed to put on. He didn't want the weapons he was supposed to use. Nope. He had God at his side. If God is for us, who can be against? But the David and Goliath story is much more than an entertaining story, it's a challenge for us to face whatever giants are standing in our way, hovering over us, taunting us and trying to frighten us into submission.

When we covered David and Goliath in my ministry class, we used Max Lucado's book, Facing Your Giants. I'm not going to go through his analysis of the battle, but it's very good. As part of our teaching, we gave each of the students five stones - my son still carries his five stones in his soccer bag. See, he realized through the class that his giant was soccer. First, I need to tell you that he is very very good at soccer. He wants to be a professional some day and I believe he just may have the talent and drive to do it. But it was also consuming him. He was miserable if the team lost. I get that. But he was also miserable if the team won and he didn't score any goals. Or if the refs were bad. Or if he missed a shot. Or whatever. Once he started to use David's techniques, his enjoyment of the game improved (and so did his game!)

Today I was going to write about all kinds of flowery David stories, but instead, I have to go to a funeral. THAT stopped me in my tracks. This afternoon I'm going to pay respects to a woman close to my age who lost her husband. The giant she must face now is awfully scary.I feel like one of the people on the sidelines of the David and Goliath story - cheering him on, but thinking, "I'm glad that's not me out there fighting that giant." I've been married to my husband and best friend for 21 years. I can't imagine life without him. Now, my friend has to wake up every morning with a horribly ugly, mean giant staring her in the face and she has to deal with that giant beating her up every minute of the day, then smacking her around a little every night before she goes to bed. That giant has several names - Grief, Despair, Loneliness and I'm sure there are many others. I am so thankful that she is a woman of faith. That's the only possible way for her to defeat that giant every day. She is ironically the same person who plans the funerals at our church and ministers to the families. Now, she is in the opposite position - one I'm sure she didn't expect to be in. I pray that she finds her five smooth stones and keeps them in her bag to nail that giant as many times as she has to until she can go over and chop off its head. That could take some time, but God has helped her defeat lions and bears in the past - just like He did with David. He'll help her again, I'm sure.

As far as other giants go, my heart goes out to all who are facing them. Giants of cancer, of broken marriages, of death, of feelings of inadequacy, of despair, of defeat, of powerlessness, of lack of faith, of impurity, of fear, of poverty, of bullies, of hopelessness.... I'm sure there are many. My prayer today is for every giant to be slain in the name of God. My prayers is for unwavering courage like David's to face those giants and hit them right between the eyes. May all of our giants be destroyed today and may our courage be renewed to face and defeat the giants of tomorrow.