Prepare the Way O Zion

Lyrics by Frans Mikael Franzen, translated by Agustus Nelson

Do you always welcome your birthday?  I’ve had years where I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday.  I vividly remember not allowing my family to mark my 50th birthday anniversary.  Why would I want to celebrate being ‘old’?  … well that was my problem, and now I’m more than 25 years past that.

I wonder what Jesus thinks when we sing advent and Christmas songs year after year, after year, and we say that we are celebrating Jesus’s birthday.

The refrain in this Advent hymn is written in the past tense:

Oh blest is Christ that came

in God's most holy name.

I feel like I’m admitting that year after year I fail to live into:

His rule is peace and freedom,

and justice, truth, and love.

and all the other earthly ideals of salvation.

I’m reminded that Jesus knows who we are and what he’s getting into.  No matter how we try to beautify and glorify the coming of Christ at the holiday, all the tinsel, lights and ornaments, the christmas cards and paintings of the nativity that look like Queen Victoria and a new born prince receiving the ambassadors of the Realm; Jesus was born in a primitive dirt floor shack with animal poop. Jesus didn’t wait for me to clean up my life, and he hasn’t given up on me yet; he’s still loving me.

And I’m getting my heart ready for the birthday party.  

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