As is my usual schedule each week, I attend and help lead a Bible study on Tuesday mornings which for the most part is attended only be men.  So to give equal time, I have coffee with the ‘girls’ on Fridays.  As is also my custom I talk on the phone with my husband several times before 8 o’clock in the morning.

            Last Friday my husband included in his goodbye ‘Call me when you’re done with your coffee and let me know all the gossip’.  To which I replied, ‘Honey, we don’t gossip.  We just share late-breaking news of local interest.’

-------------------------------

            The wonderful Christmas program our children just presented gives us an interesting version of how the gospel story might be publicized if the Lord had been born in the 20^th or 21^st century – complete with sound bytes and commercials - but in the first century communications would have been much less electronic. 

Communications would have been much more person-to-person with news being shared one-on-one in homes, at the gates of the cities, in the synagogues and at the marketplaces.  Pilgrims would have carried the news back from Jerusalem to their home towns: news of the strange events surrounding the birth of a poor child in Bethlehem and later, news of the strange teachings of John the Baptist by the River Jordan.

People would have remembered the prophesies of Isaiah.  They would wonder why the Lord had tarried so long in coming to be among them.  Why such a long time had passed since the last prophesies of the Messiah.  Why there was no good news of God’s redeeming love and good news of ‘God with us’.

------------------------------------------

But those who listened carefully to John’s message would have more to tell than interesting stories about a small baby and depressing news of John’s calling those who came to hear him broods of vipers and warning them that the ax is laid at the roots of the trees.

Those who listened more carefully would have heard ‘good news’: admonitions to sharing, kindness, fairness, respecting the poor and caring for the less fortunate.

Those who wondered whether John was the Messiah would hear that, No he was not the one, but that he, the long-expected one, was indeed coming.

-----------

It is now the third Sunday of Advent.  The Big Day is now less than two weeks away.  We hunger for the joy of Christmas celebrations.  We are anxious for times with family for the Christmas story to become real in our hearts – but that time is not yet.

At the Tuesday morning Bible study it was said that Advent is to only season of the church year we ever have to apologize for.  Like the ancient Judeans we are anxious for the Savior’s advent, impatient for the grace of God with us, eager for the joy of redemption.

But not yet.  Like ancient Israel, our time is not yet.  We have much to prepare – not just home and hearth, shopping and cookies.  But our hearts and minds, relationships in and outside our families and with the Holy One who calls us by name. 

Two weeks – surely we can wait and prepare just a bit longer.  Let us so go and do.

Amen.