This is our final time together before we embark upon the season of Christmas. Therefore this liturgy serves as our final reminder that we must "prepare the way for the Lord." Saint John the Baptist serves as the forerunner to Christ in all things including death. Therefore we see him coming out of the desert and heading into the countryside to call all people to repentance. Christ, like John the Baptist, headed out of the desert after a period of prayer and went forth to call all people to come and to follow after Him.
John the Baptist is calling all people to be prepared for the coming of this Messiah. Therefore he invites people to enter into baptism. This is not a baptism equal to the baptism that Christ extends, but nevertheless this baptism prepares hearts and souls to accept the Messiah who will soon reveal Himself to them. We know this Messiah to be Jesus Christ because He has revealed Himself to us and to this world. It was for this reason that we were brought into new life through baptism and thus our eyes were opened wide through the washing away of original sin.
In this Mass' Collect we petition: "stir up Thy power." To stir something up brings what was idle into motion. To stir up is to mix something in with another substance. This is exactly what God desires to do with us as we enter into this Christmas season. If we have grown idle in our practice of faith may we allow God to set us back into motion. May we accept the grace that God desires to bestow upon us and mix it into our life instead of so easily rejecting it by that way that we choose to live our life.
Saint John the Baptist desires that we prepare the way for the Lord because he understands that the one who we await is the Messiah. May we come to this same understanding and do all that we are able to in order to welcome this great gift into the world. There is no greater gift that can be known or encountered then the gift that is God made Flesh. On Christmas, God becomes Flesh and He comes here to dwell among us in the little town of Bethlehem. Through this reality the world has forever been changed because we have come to see the love which God has in store for each of us.
Here in our midst will come this same gift for which we now await. For here at this Mass, Christ will come to dwell with each of us in form of bread and wine. If we cannot approach the Altar of God to worthily receive the Eucharist how can we propose that we can invite Christ into this world on Christmas morning? To receive the Eucharist is to receive Christ and to allow Him to be the one who sets straight the path of our life in order that we may be sent forth from here stirred up in our practice of faith.
May we come to invite this great joy into our life and may we joyfully enter into the season of Christmas to dwell with the Word Made Flesh who continues to come here to dwell among us.
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