Prepare the way

In this episode, I reflect on the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris, drawing parallels between its restoration and our spiritual renewal during Advent. I recount the devastating fire of April 2019 and the meticulous efforts to restore the cathedral, using it as a metaphor for our own journey back to grace. Drawing on the prophet Baruch and John the Baptist, I emphasise the importance of clearing obstacles in our lives to make way for God’s presence. This Advent, let’s embrace renewal, allowing God to transform and guide us into a deeper relationship with Him.

00:00:00 I watched this morning the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris in France. It was a beautiful experience to be able to to see this once grand cathedral restored to all of its glory. I guess, like many you’ve watched in absolute horror back on the 15th of April in 2019, when we saw the cathedral go up in flames. And I have many happy memories of the cathedral, from many visits to Paris over the years, over several months, in fact. And the part of the celebration today included images of the before and after, what happened in the immediate aftermath of the fire. Seeing the nave and the central part of the sanctuary of the cathedral covered with all of the roofing material the burnt timbers, the ash that led all of the the detritus, the debris that just completely covered the floor of the cathedral, and looking up and just seeing all of the ruin that was above. And then bit by bit, they were able to first to clear away all of the debris, to begin to clean, to begin to to move every all of the junk out of the way before they then were able to start rebuilding, to make the cathedral safe again, to be able to to clean the walls of all of the soot, all of the smog, the gunk that had built up over the years.

00:01:36 The windows two were all able to be cleaned and restored back to their original glory. And it’s a good image for us during these days of advent, a good reminder of what the Lord is inviting us into this experience, this celebration of returning, of coming back to the life that God originally intended and planned for us. The God who wants us to experience just that fullness of joy and wonder in his presence, the God who is inviting us now into that place of freedom. As the prophet Baruch had realized, that sense of what happened when the people of God were trapped there in exile, they’d lost everything. Their own temple, their own cathedral, had been utterly destroyed when the Babylonians conquered the city in the year 586. Everything that they hope for, all of their dreams had been shattered. They’d been taken in chains. So when he says to look to the east, to rise, to to see the people now beginning to make their way back to the Holy Land, back to the land of Israel, and the joy and the wonder of that God is saying, I will do everything that is necessary to allow the people to return as quickly as possible.

00:02:59 Every mountain will be made low. Every valley will be filled in that powerful sense of of what God is doing for us, restoring us, reuniting us into his presence. And when John begins his ministry. Note that Luke gives us the historical context in terms of who was the Caesar and the 15th year of the reign of Caesar Augustus, that are the different people that were his representatives there in the Holy Land, the different Jewish leaders and who they were at the time. But that’s not the focus. You know, we get all of the context, but then we’re taken out into the wilderness, out into the desert, out in that place, there was the liminal space, the place of transition from what is foreign and other back into the land of the promise that people had to return through the waters of the Jordan In order to find their way back to the Lord? And John takes up the same theme by saying, made straight this highway for the Lord. Prepare the way of the Lord. Every again, every mountain will be made low.

00:04:10 Every valley filled in, the winding roads will be straightened and the rough roads will be smoothed. It’s a great image for our own lives and the transition that needs to happen so often. You know, when we look around at a road and we see all of the the rocks and the limbs and the tree branches that have fallen over the the road, we need to clear all that stuff away. Those attitudes of heart, those things of the way that our patterns of thought, behaviors, our habits, all of those items of sin or not even necessarily sin, but things that prevent us from finding that freedom in God. First, we need to clear away all of that debris. We need to remove those boulders, those stones, those rocks. We need to move away the branches. We need to sweep it clean. And maybe you’ve already done that work. Maybe you’ve already leveled things out. The road is pretty good, but it needs just a sweeping. It needs to to have the, the, the smaller things also taken away because they can get in the way as well.

00:05:18 Anything that prevents us from being loved by God, by being able to move freely along the highway of the Lord. But there’s also things that we need to do, things that we need to add, the potholes that need to be filled in, the valleys that need to be leveled up. We need to to really think about the ruts that we’ve we’ve set into in our lives that that don’t allow us to flow freely along the way. Maybe we need to add more things within our lives, a greater love of God, a greater love of our need for a neighbor To, to be of more service to those around us. To be more generous. To be more charitable. What are the the absences that are in our life? And it’s not enough just to clear away the debris, but to also be aware of the things that we need to add within our lives. The cleaning that needs to happen, the polishing, the fixing up. What is the Lord inviting us into? He’s always calling us to freedom.

00:06:20 And the prophet Baruch reminds us that God is the one who’s doing this work. We don’t have to do all the heavy lifting, but we need to to get out of the way. We need to invite the Lord to be present in this work, so that God indeed is able to make straight the highway of the Lord, that he’s able to make this path, that people are freely able to come and to join in the worship and wonder of our God. So let’s indeed be people of advent, people that open ourselves to the way of God, to allow the Lord to do this work of restoring and renewing his people and his Kingdom during these days.