Prepare Him Room

A Reflection on the Second Reading for December 2nd, 2018:
First Sunday of Advent

1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2

May the Lord be generous in increasing your love and make you love one another and the whole human race as much as we love you. And may he so confirm your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless in the sight of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus Christ comes with all his saints.

Finally, brothers, we urge you and appeal to you in the Lord Jesus to make more and more progress in the kind of life that you are meant to live: the life that God wants, as you learnt from us, and as you are already living it. You have not forgotten the instructions we gave you on the authority of the Lord Jesus.

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Love. Love. Love. As soon as I read the words, the Beatles song popped into my head. That song that my mother used to play for us and that found its way onto the soundtrack of a million and one movies. The backing vocals “Love. Love. Love.” repeating over and over again so many times that they become noise. I remember as a kid, getting lost in the repetition. I remember the feeling when it was like a meditation that drew me away but didn’t fill me with anything but deafening silence.

But what Saint Paul is talking about isn’t the love chanted so many times it runs the risk of becoming totally meaningless. Saint Paul is talking about a kind of love that is filling, overflowing, life changing. As we step through the liturgical door into Advent, bathed in regal and expectant purple, the love waiting for us at the other end isn’t sticky, saccharine pink, but deep, saturated, blood red. It’s a love that allows itself to be contained but cannot ever be truly contained. It is love that is entirely vulnerable in the tiny child, but also mighty to save in the man crucified on the cross. It’s a love that means everything and that changes everything.

"Saint Paul is talking about a kind of love that is filling, overflowing, life changing."

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When I think of Christ’s love, shown to us in His incarnation, death, and resurrection, and then I compare it to my own attempts at love, I realize how much mine is like that Hallmark valentine, “Love. Love. Love” and how little mine is like the sacrificial love of Christ. Luckily, Saint Paul has some words of encouragement for me today. He reminds me that I can appeal to Jesus to make me more capable of a love like His.

There’s another song, an old hymn that, like the Beatles song, has its own fair share of repetition: “Let every heart prepare Him room”. What does preparing room for Christ really look like? Preparing room for Christ is so much more than cleaning your house and putting on your best clothes, it means making room in our hearts themselves. Last week we said goodbye to a very dear family member. The grief of her sudden passing strained my heart, but that stretching grief also made room in my heart for trust, faith, and hopefully for more of Christ’s love.

"Preparing room for Christ is so much more than cleaning your house and putting on your best clothes, it means making room in our hearts themselves."

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Let us Pray:

Dear Jesus, this Advent may you use all the circumstances of our lives to stretch our hearts to make room for you, and fill our hearts with Your love. Amen.

Stephanie Potter

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