Advent is the season of Christ’s coming. It’s time for all of us to wake up. In doing so, we realize that this may be our last Advent, our last time to prepare for the coming of the Messiah in our life at our own Judgment. Today’s reading speaks to this: Luke, 7, 18-23
“At that time,
John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord to ask,
“Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?”
When the men came to the Lord, they said,
“John the Baptist has sent us to you to ask,
‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?’”
At that time Jesus cured many of their diseases, sufferings, and evil spirits;
he also granted sight to many who were blind.
And Jesus said to them in reply,
“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard:
the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear, the dead are raised,
the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
“And blessed is the one who takes no offense at Me.” This is a great clue to the beginning of our own Advent, our own approach to Christ, by which we follow The Baptist’s advice to “make straight the way of the Lord” into our own being.
That process requires the reprogramming of our vain, human mind, through repentance. As the passage tells us, it ranks in complexity with His miracles of reprogramming the ability to see into damaged ocular systems, reprogramming operational control into working musculature, erasing the leprosy virus from its tiny, intercellular homes. restoring the hearing program from the tiny bones of the ear to the hearing section of the brain, and reprogramming life into dead bodies. Along with those monumental reprogramming jobs that John’s disciples saw Jesus performing, He specifically added, “And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me”.
His last-mentioned programming action, overriding our Human Vanity Program with The Repentance and Humility Programs so that the glory and power of God is no longer shunned, but embraced, is as great a miracle as those preceding it in the other miraculous accomplishments.
He wanted John to know these huge, complicated reprogrammings were taking place so he’d know that God had come to earth and that his own life, spent “making straight the way of the Lord” was not spent in vain, but in glorious triumph. John, in his prison cell, had doubted, but at the report of his disciples, that doubt evaporated forever, and he was ready for his final martyrdom.
That transformation within the minds, spirits, and souls of many who saw Him relates to, and gives special meaning to, the earlier sentence, “At that time Jesus cured many of their diseases, sufferings, and and evil spirits”. It is, after all is said and done, the legion of evil spirits who keep us from God while keeping us vain.
Transforming our vanity into humility and obedience is a big deal of cosmic, eternal proportions. We may think of it as our Christmas present to God. We should work on it continually. As we do, we realize that our inner transformation, that re-polarization of our soul, is God’s Christmas present to us.
