December 2024 e:News: From Bishop Monnot

“Prepare the way!”

This is the main message of Advent. We hear it in our Gospel readings on Sundays, as we listen to the words of Jesus, John, and Mary, speaking both about the first coming of Christ, born a human baby, and also the second coming, which has not yet happened.

Now, in the twenty-first century, the gospel message of preparation gets muddled up with our cultural need to prepare for what we sometimes call the “Holiday Season.” Many of us decorate our homes, decorate Christmas trees, send cards, purchase and wrap gifts, prepare and eat special foods, and attend special events during the month of December. All of this activity can contribute to a sense of being overwhelmed or exhausted, with too much to do, too many obligations to fulfill, and not enough time.

I have sometimes thought that what I really ought to do is to get as much preparation for the “Holiday Season” as possible done ahead of time. In my imagination I purchase and wrap gifts in October and November, prepare and freeze special foods well in advance of wanting to eat them, get my Christmas card list in order in September, and so on. In my imagination, this advance preparation allows me to spend Advent the way that the Gospels invite us to spend it: preparing, yes, but a more spiritual preparation. So far, these advance holiday preparations have only happened in my imagination, and never in real life.

I yearn for quiet and calm during Advent to focus on preparing my heart for the coming of Christ, and to learn to live my life in the world from the foundation of that prepared heart. I want the time to examine my outward life and to align it with the gospel values that I hold, and yet every Advent I find myself rushing to make my holiday preparations at the last minute, looking at the calendar and wondering where the weeks and months went.

The result of all this busyness in Advent is that I have less time to focus on the preparation that the Gospel calls us to. It may be the same for you: so much to do in preparation for Christmas that there isn’t much time left for contemplation of what we are actually celebrating, and how to truly prepare for it.

If this is true for you, as it is for me, I have some good news. We can re-frame some of our traditional Advent busyness and discover inner preparation even in the midst of it. When we gather with friends and family, or even with folks we don’t know so well (an annual Christmas concert, perhaps), we can remind ourselves to be fully present with them and look for Christ in them. When we decorate our homes, we can be mindful of the joy that our decorations bring, whether we invite others to our home or just enjoy our decorations ourselves. When we prepare cards, food, and gifts to share, we can pause to give thanks to God who has blessed us with the abundance we have to share, and then we pass that blessing on to the people we will share with.

Another common Advent activity in our society is making year-end gifts to organizations that we care about and that do good in the world. This giving, like preparing cards, food, and gifts to share, is a grateful response to God who has blessed us with abundance that we can share with others to bless them. If God has blessed you this year through the work of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa, please consider passing that blessing along to others in the form of a year-end gift to the Blessing Fund. Click here to watch the fun video that we made for Giving Tuesday, or here to go to the webpage where you can make a donation.

May God bless you in this season of preparation, and may your preparations be brought to fulfillment at the coming of Christ.

Yours in the abundant life of Christ,
+Betsey

The Rt. Rev. Betsey Monnot, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Iowa