If like me, you are a fan of historical novels you will be quite familiar with messengers arriving and shouting out their news (and there is a lot of shouting going on in today’s readings). Usually, in the novels the news they bring is, more often than not, unpopular - well you wouldn't want to spoil a good story. In most cases the herald is exhausted having travelled far to proclaim their message. Sadly, some of them end up dead - either because others do not want the message to be delivered or the recipient doesn't like what he or she is told. Whatever their fate, messengers were important in conveying the news of the society in which they lived.

John-the-Baptist is one such messenger and his ministry seems to have been foretold by the prophet Isaiah centuries before, also a messenger:

3 A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

In today’s readings what is clear is that the messenger is not the one 'to come’ but merely the pre-cursor and it is striking in Mark’s Gospel account that John is humbly pointing the way to Jesus:

7He proclaimed, ‘The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. Mark 1:7

The messenger, so says Isaiah, is the one sent to tread the path 'to make a highway in the desert', to level out the uneven path for the more important figure to follow. Many people, we are told were, drawn to John’s call to Baptism and I suspect many wondered if he were in fact the promised Messiah but John refutes any such suggestion that he is ‘The One’. He is merely the servant of the one to come. I wonder how many of us would be as humble as John was, when lauded with praise and adulation not to take on the mantle of superiority and to make out that we were the ‘Promised One’? Human nature likes flattery and we can all be tempted to be something we are not - but, not John.

Mark tells us that John-the-Baptist came to make 'the paths straight' and to encourage repentance. Both Mark and Isaiah seek to tell us that we need to prepare and be prepared to meet the Lord, the Christ. Perhaps not an easy thing to try and do nowadays with the frenetic run up to Christmas and the disappearance of Advent in secular awareness. There just doesn’t seem to be time to prepare. We do not, however, only need to prepare we also need to be ready to respond to the call as well. It is all well and good ‘hearing’ the call to repentance but we have to make a positive response in order for that cal to really make a difference in our lives. John called his followers not only to repent but to be physically Baptised as well. We 2000 odd years later are also called to hear and respond too.

In order to properly prepare and respond we have to try and clear space in our lives, hearts and minds in order to shut out the ungodly din of life and allow the godly voice of our Creator to talk to us and to encourage us to make that response to his call. Easier said than done, though. So what to do?

This Advent try and find just a few minutes each day to be still, to stop and let the busy-ness of the world pass you by. You might want to quietly and calmly say the Lord’s prayer a couple of times a day or just to sit and be with God for a few moments. You could even do this on the bus, or in a busy café. Just carve out a wee space to pray or to be quiet.

How ever you create this time, make trying it a priority. See this as prayer time in which: “The still,

small voice of calm” can talk directly to you in the silence or even with just the silence. Look out for the signs or people (prophets) pointing you in a new direction or encouraging along the path you already tread and be open to surprises as to how God might be talking to you.

What might you hear? and How will you respond?

These are two questions you might have to try and answer. For when we stop and give space to God, we might be surprised, as I said, by what God is trying to say to us! And, who knows where, actually giving God a bit time this Advent, might take you?

“See the Lord comes ...” Isaiah 40:10a