Preparation. The season of Advent is about preparation. Preparing for the holidays and the holy days of Christmas. Preparing for the end of all things and the coming of Jesus in glory. Preparing the way of parents expecting their first child prepare - with anticipation, excitement, fear, and joy all at the same time - preparing for the baby’s arrival. In fact, Advent is like a pregnancy. Time is pregnant with the Promise of God. Christ is near. It’s time to get ready.

Today’s Gospel is about Jesus’ cleansing of the temple. It’s not the kind of Jesus we like to hear about, this Jesus who takes a bunch of cords and turns them into a whip and drives out the sheep and the oxen and those who were selling them and turns over the tables of the temple moneychangers.. We’d prefer to hear about gentle and kind Jesus, who makes 180 gallons of really great wine for a wedding reception. Fun Jesus. But not this Jesus, with face flush with anger, and veins sticking out of his neck, consumed by zeal for his Father’s house.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

The Word became flesh and dwelt (ejskhnwsen, tabernacled)among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father. (John 1:1-2,14)

In many times and in many manners God spoke to our fathers of old by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world. (Hebrews 1:1-2)

One of the comforting things about the Gospel narrative is how slow Jesus’ disciples are in getting the good news of Jesus. From Mark’s perspective, the disciples never quite get it, even at the resurrection. Matthew suggests the same thing. Luke tells us that things really didn’t click until Pentecost, and even then, the apostles didn’t always run on all twelve Gospel cylinders. There were misfires and mistakes. I’m comforted by the disciples’ slowness because I recognize the same thing at work in me.

This was the second time the disciples heard Jesus speak of His death and resurrection. “The Son of Man must be handed over into the hands of men, be killed, and they will kill Him, and after He is killed, He will rise again after three days.” There was no mistaking what Jesus was saying, as He taught His disciples on their way through Galilee. There was no mysteries, no riddles, no parables. Plain and simple. Jesus was about to die and rise. And the amazing thing is that the disciples didn’t get it. They did not comprehend this. In spite of everything Jesus has taught them. In spite of His miracles, His power over diseases and the demonic. In spite of the vision on the mountain where Jesus’ divinity shone like the sun through His humanity, they could not accept His death and resurrection.