Prepare

These last few days of Advent are a time of preparation on a number of levels. We all have our various routines and family customs at this time of year. Some of us will still be frantically buying gifts, others will be wrapping and labelling. Some of us will be decorating our homes this weekend. Some of us will be buying food for Christmas dinner, or setting up the TV to record some of the things we will miss.

Christmas, and the days and weeks leading up to it, are often the busiest and most stressful days of the year, as we all dilligently prepare our selves, and our homes, for that 'perfect Christmas'.

John the Baptist was the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.' John today might be the voice crying out from the wild bustling of the high street, or as we dash about at home trying to make everything 'perfect'. John's voice cuts through the mess and the busyness and the panic of the last days of Advent with a simple challenge to us all, a challenge to pray, and make a straight, level path for Christ in us.

(if you use this as a group, a * indicates a change of reader and bold should be said together.)

* God of the watching ones,
give us your benediction.

* God of the waiting ones,
give us Your good word for our souls.

* God of the watching ones,
the waiting ones
the slow and suffering ones,
give us Your benediction,
Your good word for our souls,
that we might rest.

* God of the watching ones,
the waiting ones,
the slow and suffering ones,

* and of the angels in heaven,

* and of the child in the womb,

give us your benediction,
Your good word for our souls,
that we might rest and rise
in the kindness of Your company.

This prayer is taken from Celtic Daily Prayer by the Northumbria Community (London: Collins, 2005). The rest of the post is also inspired by the book.