Pre-preparing

Friends o’ the Mask, 

 

We had a brief conversation yesterday at dinner over whether there was such a thing as “pre-preparing,” or if simply “preparing” includes all of the stages of getting ready for something and not just the last part. The word “prepare” is curious in itself. The root, pare, taken by itself can refer to cutting the outsides away, like we might do with a paring knife, or simply to reduce something down. To pre-pare, then, would refer to the process of focusing, prioritizing, paring down ahead of time in order to be ready for the event for which we are preparing. You can see why the discussion might arise sitting at a Thanksgiving meal. The food was prepared all morning – in our house that meant baking garlic, caramelizing onions, chopping vegetables, and so forth, all of which was done by three marvelous cooks not named me. But, before all of that preparing could happen, Wednesday had trips to Grower’s Ranch (our favorite produce store), Trader Joe’s, and elsewhere. And before those trips, someone had to volunteer to take a side, a dessert, a main course, etc., and make up a list of ingredients that we needed. And so on. The ‘preparing’ on Thursday morning was preceded by several steps of preparing. Hence, the discussion of whether to repeat the prefix ‘pre’ and create the word ‘pre-preparing.’ 

 

The dinner conversation ran out of steam with no resolution, but the issue remains a live one, because we are now getting ready for the season of Advent. Since the word “Advent” means “coming,” it is a season where we prepare for the coming of Christ. We sing, “Prepare the Way, O Zion,” and hear the words of John the Baptizer that are echoed in that song. We prepare for the coming of Jesus by listening anew to the prophets of old, and sing, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” And we give ear to those messages of the New Testament that point to what we call “the Second Coming” or, properly, “the Second Advent.” That’s a bit trickier for us, since we have heard so many misguided attempts to dissect the mystery out of those messages and to treat the Second Advent as a kind of parlor guessing game. But, still, we know that the early church was animated by the idea that the world-as-we-know-it is a time-dated reality that will one day give way to a ‘new heaven and new earth,’ where peace and justice kiss, the sting of death is gone, and every tear is dried. So, the season of Advent is that time when we focus directly on the double-layered experience of anticipating the coming one. 

 

But, as our dinner conversation displayed, ‘preparing’ has many layers. Today, an Advent Team will be preparing the sanctuary, fellowship hall, and other spaces for you to have a fulfilling worship experience, we have been pre-preparing for this preparation for quite a while. Likewise, the idea of ‘preparing for the Second Coming’ is multi-layered. “Preparing” is rarely a matter of a last-minute rush to make sure that all things are ready. It is, rather, a discipline, a manner of living a lifetime of expectation. We go through this Advent season year after year - not because we are mad and imagine that if we do the same thing over and over we might get a different outcome, but because we are cultivating a mindset of living toward the coming of Christ. That’s the pre-preparing that enables us to hear the words of the prophets, angels, and characters in the stories anew. And that is why we participate in the Alternative Christmas Market or take a tag off of the Christmas Angel tree. These are our ways of preparing, by living into the coming one’s reign of justice and peace.

This year our theme is “Angels of Hope.” We’re not so interested in vexing over whether angels are real or mythological symbols, whether they are like giant bird-people or shiny choir members, whether rational 21^stcentury people should even be using that language when speaking of sacred things, or the long-lasting waste of time wondering how many of them can dance on the head of a pin. The word “angel” actually means “messenger,” an etymology in Greek that carries over into English in the word “evangel,” or “good news.” Each week we will hear how the good news comes to people and we will marvel at how powerful, but complex hope is. Through the stories of Zechariah, Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds, we will see how angelic messages bring faith and doubt, wonder and fear, hope and despair – a genuine look at what it means to prepare for a new world. 

 

So, today, we are pre-preparing - or, for you sticklers out there, we are in early stages of preparing. Get ready. The season of preparation is at hand. 

 

Mark of St. Mark