Participating with God in the room prepared by 2020
POST BY MATT MCCOY
This blog is a preview of what we’ll talk about at the worship service on Sunday, November 22.
Throughout history, one of the major themes of Advent is “preparing room for God.” In keeping with this theme, our Big Idea for Advent last year was:
And, if you walked through Advent with us last year, you might remember how we spent time together in a barn noticing how God shows up in the places where room has been prepared for God. So we spent time discussing ways that we prepare room for Jesus in our hearts as we worshipped together.
That was just last year, but it feels like such a long time ago. As I look at these photos, I’m overwhelmed with how much I miss eating with y’all, celebrating with y’all, playing with y’all, and just the simple joy of being together in the same place with y’all. So much has changed in a year.
Pandemics, pestilences, and plagues have been happening throughout history. While this pandemic might be new to us, it isn’t new to God or to humanity. The Old Testament prophets and church history tell us, over and over again, how God uses events like these to bring to the light what is in darkness, reveal what has been hidden, and help us see what we’d rather overlook.
Racial turmoil, social unrest, and the broken places in our relationships have all been much easier to see in this past year. At the root of our broken humanity (which our small group “Healing Our Broken Humanity” invites us to enter) is a worship of something other than Jesus, and our path back to healing is to fall deeper in love with Jesus and walk in the direction he is walking in.
Sunday is Christ the King Sunday, which is the last day of the year in the Church calendar and the transition into Advent (which starts next week).
On this day, we remember that while Jesus showed up as a baby, Jesus also showed up as The King. His is a whole different Kingdom we’re invited into, with its own laws, customs, culture, and way of life.
Artwork prints by the talented designer, Scott Erickson
In Advent 2019, we prepared room for Jesus. Throughout the year, God has been using the chaotic events of everyday life to prepare room for himself.
Amidst all the tragedy, disruption, heartbreak and struggle of the last year, how has Jesus been preparing room in our hearts to love him, follow him, and walk with him? How has these event revealed that the compass of my heart wasn’t pointing towards Jesus as magnetic north, and instead was pointing towards something else? What room has emerged in our lives, and what have we filled it with?
These are the questions we’ll get to explore together this Advent, as we focus on how we participate with God in the room prepared by 2020.
But before we get there, since it’s Christ the King Sunday coming up, let’s take a look at one particular illustration of how God prepares room for the coming of King Jesus:
At first glance, this might seem strange. Does God not like rugged terrain? Why is a straight highway important, and why do the mountains have to go away, and what’s wrong with valleys? Since I’m living in the Cascade Mountains, and my family loves spending time outdoors, I’ll go ahead and say it: God sounds like a miserable hiking partner, and God seems anti-mountain biking.
But if we try to travel back in time to when this was originally written and look at this prophecy from their perspective, we get a better lens into what this might mean for us on Christ the King Sunday. God is coming as King, and this prophecy is a scene of the preparations for the King’s arrival.
Something that was different back in those days: The vehicles which transported royalty didn’t have the sort of suspension that our vehicles have today. Bumps in the road meant the king was getting bumped around.
Something that was the same back in those days: Nobody likes getting bumped around, and a bumpy ride makes for a grouchy passenger.
Nobody wants the king to show up grouchy, so the road needs to be straight and flat or the king might get motion sickness. Uneven ground means the king might not be able to take a nap, drink a beverage, or enjoy the ride as much. Everyone wants the king to show up in a good mood, so the verbs in verse three “prepare” and “make straight” are plurals, in that the whole community is participating in getting the road prepared. Verse three shows us that we are involved in preparing room for the arrival of the King.
Verse four opens up our imaginations to see that God is the one doing the heavy lifting when it comes to preparations. On a cosmic scale, God is going to do EVERYTHING to prepare room for the arrival of the King. The mountains that seem impossible for us to climb, God will remove. The chasms between us, our enemies, and our King, those chasms will be filled in by God. The obstacles in our lives that keep us from loving our King, each other, and ourselves, those obstacles will be tossed aside. This advent, we participate with God in the room prepared by 2020.
We discovered during our series in Ruth that our vocation is participating in what God is doing. We’ve had the opportunity to reflect and engage together what God is doing in our midst, and how we participate with God as our vocation together. This advent we get to continue that thread of vocation, of “participating in what God is doing,” as we examine how God has been preparing room in our hearts and in our church for the coming of the king, and how we get to participate with God in that space together.