Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.
The image and theme of home is at the heart of our preparations for the arrival of the Christ-child at Christmas. It’s a cornerstone of our belief as Christians; God chose to make a dwelling among us, with us. A translation of the beginning of John’s Gospel is: “The Word became flesh and made a home among us.” God becomes human so that all humankind can share in the life of God. That’s the Good News of Christianity from the very beginning of our story as a church. God makes a home among us, as one of us, so that we can make our home with God.
The home we are asked to house-keep is the home of our souls, both individually as well as the souls our communities. I like to remind myself that my neighbors may be interested in what my front yard looks like in December. Is the wreath up? Are the lights that pierce the darkness of the long nights white or colorful? Maybe you’re feeling the pressure to measure up with the neighbors’ displays. I’ve come see that the prophets we hear from at Advent—Isaiah, John the Baptist, and Jesus himself—have something to say about outward appearances. They’re not interested so much about what’s in the front yard, but rather what’s in the backyard of our lives and souls. What junk—of old resentments, hatreds, envies, fear, greed, and ingratitude—clutter our attics, our garages? Of course I’m speaking metaphorically, of the home of your life.
How ready is your heart to welcome Jesus this year?
That we have people who are unhoused, unfed, unsheltered, and lost, forced to find articles of clothing or blankets in dumpsters here in our cities and towns is an outward and visible sign of the inward and spiritual lack of grace in our collective soul. Jesus comes to us as one of these—a sibling child of God who is hungry and in need of safe shelter, utterly dependent on our compassion and concern. It is a sign that our world has some real spiritual housekeeping to do, as we watch our neighbors live in fear of being taken unjustly from their homes, schools, even churches.
One of my favorite songwriters is Tom Waits who has a song House Where Nobody Lives. I hear it as a kind of a warning for us to be swift to love in these days. Love makes the most humble of our houses a mansion. As Tom Waits says, no matter what the house is made of, “if there’s love in that house, it’s a palace for sure.” We may live alone. We may find ourselves missing someone terribly. We may be longing for companionship. The Advent message is that God is seeking us. And God knocks on the door of our hearts, hoping to come in.
The priest and writer G.K. Chesterton, of Father Brown fame, once said this about welcoming God in Advent:
Good news: but if you ask me what it is, I know not;
It is a track of feet in the snow, It is a lantern showing a path,
It is a door set open.
“Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation, that your Son Jesus Christ, at his coming, may find in us a mansion prepared for himself.”