Bishop Steven Maekawa&#039;s Advent Message

December 15, 2023

“Prepare the way of the LORD! Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low; the rugged land shall be made a plain, the rough country, a broad valley.” Isaiah 40:3

The season of Advent. The prophet Isaiah uses imagery from the field of civil engineering employed in the ancient world. To this very day, the idea of leveling hills and using the dirt and rocks to fill in valleys to create a flat highway is employed as an effective road building technique. We call it “cut and fill” and there are examples of it everywhere on the roads and highways of America.

Isaiah uses the image of “cut and fill” as a metaphor for the Jews creating a road home from exile in Babylon to their homeland in Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Their “preparing the way” consists of spiritual preparation and religious purity. They are to be ready in mind, heart and soul to take action when the time of Lord is at hand to bring them back from Exile.

This Advent we can think of cut and fill road building in the spiritual sense as cutting away the presence of sin and filling in the voids in our virtue. In Alaska, perhaps what we are building is not a highway, but an airstrip for the Lord. A big, centrally located place, cleared of trees, level and smooth, where Jesus Christ can land to bring in people and supplies like the Communion of Saints and the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.

We begin Advent in a place of utter darkness. Our world is dark as the night when it is without the truth and grace of God. The candles of the Advent wreath remind us that the Light of God approaches. The Gospel stories of Jesus’ nativity leading up to his birth tell us that the grace of God is working in many others but the fruit of this grace cannot yet directly be seen. Starting with Mary and then Joseph, John, Elizabeth and Zechariah, we see these Holy people as “candles of God” who are being lit by the presence of Jesus in Mary’s womb. God is coming to meet us, a people stranded in the darkness, and signs of his light cannot be completely hidden.

At Christmas, the dawn from on high will break upon us. The choirs of angels appear to the shepherds in the fields. They light up the night sky to announce the birth of Jesus. No need for candles now. The Lord is not near. The Lord is here! The shepherds are bathed in the light of the angels. They are not spectators in the story of salvation. They are participants. What do they do?

They go. They go to Jesus with haste and without fear. To be even more surprised and overwhelmed by what they find: the Word made Flesh and dwelling among us. The Light of the World in a manger. Jesus is born into the world as one of us. As an expression of God wanting us to trust him, he allows himself to be brought into the world utterly dependent on those he has come to save.

This Advent, prepare the way of the Lord. Make a highway (or an airstrip) – cut away sins, fill the gaps of virtue so that when he comes at Christmas we are ready. We are ready to go meet the Lord, who has come to bring us back from exile, home to our Father in heaven.

+Bishop Steven J. Maekawa, O.P.