Prepare Your Heart for Peace

Message for Advent 2 on Malachi 3:1-4; Luke 3:1-6 on December 8, 2024 at St. Luke's Lutheran Church, Richardson, Texas

When our kids were growing up, we spent a week at Ghost Ranch every summer, a Presbyterian camp and Conference center in the high red rock desert west of Abiquiu, New Mexico. Dan had been there as a boy, so knew the place well.

One summer, early on when Leah was only 4 1/2, and the boys were 6 ½ and 8 1/2, Dan was convinced that Leah could do the big hike behind the camp called Kitchen Mesa. It would be my first time making this hike too. We headed out after lunch. It was about 98 degrees, very sunny, and very hot at 6500 feet above sea level.

The first part of the hike was a lot of fun, we chugged up the backside of the mesa with a steady climb, but then we got to what’s called the “narrow dirt path.” It was on a steep hill of loose gravel, and the path was only about a foot wide and 30 or 40 feet long. You could tell it was dangerous, because 10 feet down the gravel embankment was a catch wire in case you slipped and headed downhill.

I took one look, and thought to myself, “what kind of idiot have I married and had children with?” I was SO mad! But there Dan was, acting like all this was actually normal. He led the boys across, came and got Leah and I followed behind. I started silently fuming.

Then came “the chute.” This was hand over fist rock climbing through a narrow crevice and everyone, including me, had to be shoved by Dan from the behind up through the crevice, hanging onto rock edges you went.

Really? This is a great hike for a 4-1/2 year old? Jacob and Daniel had already done it the year before when Leah and I stayed home. We all made it through the chute and were at the top of the mesa. I hoped we were close to the end, but no, there was another 30 minutes of (angry) hiking to get to the front of the Mesa to look down on the vista of the whole ranch. We took our victory picture, and started back. I smiled through gritted teeth. 

Leah was doing fine. The truth was, I was feeling weak and wobbly before we got through the chute. I had forgotten that my new migraine prevention meds caused dehydration. Our Gatorade was gone, and we had 1 bottle of water left for the 5 of us to get all the way back to camp. I was overheated, my head and my heart were pounding, and it was hard to keep moving in the blazing sun. The boys took turns holding my hand, which literally gave me strength. We rationed the water—I got 2 sips to their 1. My pulse was over 150 and struggled to put one foot in front of the other, but I kept moving. I knew if I stopped, I would not be able to start again, and they’d have to carry me out on a stretcher.

As we got all the way to the trail head, Leah raced in front of me to be the first to get back to the ranch—this little fierce creature was more fit than I was.
Dan was absolutely right about her. He kept them all safe. I was angry at him, but who was the one putting all 3 of them at risk? Me! I was. If something had happened to one of them, I was in no shape to take care of my own kids, because I had neglected to figure out how to take care of myself.

Why is it that the thing that makes us so angry at other people is the very thing that is wrong with us?

It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? Perhaps not always in such a dramatic fashion as this story, but it tends to be a life lesson that recurs lest we forget that what annoys us in others is what we do not like in ourselves. What makes us angry or judgmental about others, is what angers us and makes us judge ourselves. But the mirror can be a painful place to look. So, we would rather gossip, and point fingers, and judge, and wonder what in the sam hill is wrong with that family member, or that neighbor, or those voters, or this generation, or whatever seems to be disrupting our peace today, or our serenity this week, or our fa la la la la this holiday season.

The word of God came to John proclaiming a Baptism of repentance and the forgiveness of sins. …the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight…
Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.

Repentance is to “turn around toward God” and to remove the obstacles that that get in the way of our relationship with God and becoming our fullest, truest selves in Christ. So, what is John really asking of us? That we would join him in a time of opening our heart—if not in the wilderness, then here in worship, and a few minutes in the morning or evening—or on the weekend—a time apart— where we can be away from our schedule, and not so in control, so we can see ourselves a bit more clearly. To engage in some mirror time.

John asks for a moment of preparing our heart, when we can ask the Lord to come and remove the anger from our hearts and help us to accept ourselves, and therefore others, as we are, with all of our own frustrating humanness. John calls us to a time of preparing our heart when we can ask the coming Savior to erase the judgments from our mind and enable us to love others, and even ourselves as he loves us. In so doing, Jesus brings low the mountainous barriers between us and those we think are so different from us. John beckons us to a moment of preparing our heart when we can plead for the coming Christ to take the crooked pathways in our hearts that zig zag from hope to despair to control to thanks to doubt to faith to depression to love and back again, and give our heart that gentle pull that straightens us out toward the divine peace which holds us all.

John cries out for us to take a time of preparing our heart when we can turn over to Immanuel, God-with-us, the rough places that burden us, and then wait for the Spirit’s urging from within to take the next right step to smooth the path ahead.  Oh yes, John spent enough time in the wilderness, maybe like Ghost Ranch, for God to help him remove those obstacles in his heart and bring him peace. And this is what John desires for us—that ALL those obstacles, and crooked paths, and mountainous feelings, and rough relationships would be awash with the peace and presence of Jesus, who today and always, is forever coming to us with God’s love, compassion, forgiveness, and transformation of heart.

This is what it is to prepare for the coming of the Lord—both the babe who is born in our hearts anew, and the return of the victorious Christ at the end of time.
We want our hearts, our lives and our relationship with God to be ready. We can be filled with the Peace of Christ that passes all understanding right now today!
Prepare your heart. Prepare your soul. Prepare your life. Prepare your relationships. 

So, I invite you into a prayer of preparation this week:
1. Pick one emotion you have felt toward someone else (e.g. anger, resentment, judgement, annoyance) and ask God to help you look at what this reveals about you that you do not like
2. Ask God to help you grow through this character issue, to release the outward-directed negative emotions, then invite Jesus into this struggle, and ask for Jesus’ peace in place of your mountain of negative emotions—anger, (resentment etc.)
3. Pray for self-acceptance of your human limitations and for Jesus’ peace, love, and light to shine through you
4. Ask for forgiveness to repair a relationship if this is needed

After the infamous Kitchen Mesa hike, I was fine once I got hydrated again. In subsequent years, we got up at 5 am and did the hike before breakfast! The boys picked the morning that French Toast was served for breakfast! But that year, I did need repentance, a transformation of heart, and to apologize to Dan for misjudging him. I was in an art class at the Ranch called Retablo—a folk art form from Mexico where you write a story on your painting. I am not an artist, so as per this sermon, please don’t judge me—it’s worse looking than a paint-by-numbers. I made this for Dan—it’s of Kitchen Mesa and it hangs behind our bedroom door so Dan can see it, but no one else.

Here we are on top of Kitchen Mesa with our arms raised in victory. I shared a little bit about the hike and being quietly incensed. I wrote how my young children inspired me to keep moving when I felt like collapsing. The last 2 lines say, “What a blessing that my children have dad who will challenge them to risk within the safe bounds of his arms’ reach. My mom has a framed cross-stitch piece that proclaims, 'The Kitchen is the Heart of the Home.'  But for me, 'The Kitchen Mesa' is the heart of our home.”

When we open our hearts and allow God to prepare them for Jesus’s coming by removing the obstacles that hinder peace, we more readily turn around and repent,
we repair relationships, we experience equanimity in our emotions, and we become less reactive to the external circumstances around us. We then become vessels of shalom and peacemakers in our community and the world as our hearts become straight pathways of peace, and the mountains and valleys of our life even out with hope, and our rough ways become smoothed by love by the Christ, who is always coming to us anew.

A clear look in the mirror does not have to be so bad when the outcome is a heart transformed by the peace of Christ. Malachi give us the image of a refiner of silver. The metal worker knows that her silver is purified when she shines it, and it becomes a mirror—where she can see her own image. This is God’s desire for each of us. As God prepares, refines, and polishes you, God sees the image of Jesus Christ reflected back.