I remember getting fired from a job.

I was just out of college, and I worked as a personal assistant for a rather difficult man.  He was gruff, demanding, and could be rather rude.  I didn’t know at the time that he had gone through personal assistants like paper towels – unfortunately not treating them much better.

My naturally naïve and affable demeanor meant that I had gone a few months before actually being offended by my boss.  And the work got harder.  That’s when I unconsciously started to do what most people do.  I pulled back and distanced myself.  I thought I was doing my job – I had certainly continued to do what was expected in the job description.  But I was disconnecting – and before I knew it, I was stunned to find out I was out of a job.

"Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" asked John the Baptist in this Sunday’s Gospel reading.  John had started his ministry, which we heard about last week, calling people to repent.  Entire towns turned out to be baptized.  We remember John’s harsh predictions that the Messiah would chop down trees that don’t produce, and burn away chaff with unquenchable fire.

This is what John was expecting Jesus to do.  But this wasn’t what Jesus was doing.

So cold, hungry and awash in disappointment, we imagine, St. John, as he tried to figure out what went wrong.  How could God have failed him?  You and I, in the comforts of 2,000 years of hindsight, can see the disconnect – we can see where John went, and where Jesus was going.  And we know well from personal experience – when God fails to meet our expectations, perhaps its time to ask ourselves how well aligned we are with God.

Are we looking for a God who will do what we want and not what God wants?  How do we open ourselves up to the Lord in a way that doesn’t surprise or disappoint us?  Easy, we get on board with God’s program.  So how can we use this Advent season to do that?

Reading

God is not Great – Christopher Hitchens

Radial – David Platt

God is Back – Mickelthwait and Woldridge