So I was sitting in my living room, this was some years ago when my kids were younger. It was a cold winter’s night that was so deep and I was sitting by the fire. And like a good Methodist, and even if I was Presbyterian at the time, I’ve always been a closet Methodist, so like a good Methodist, as the fire blazed I felt strangely warm.

We had bought our Christmas tree that day, and in honor of Advent I was wearing my favorite purple shirt. We spent the afternoon stringing lights, hanging balls, and placing tinsel. Not that new-fangled garland stuff, but the old fashioned kind, you know, that you drape piece by piece and branch by branch. And like those Christmas-y families of old, we carefully hung a single strand of aluminum tinsel on each branch of the tree: a Douglas fir, my wife’s favorite.

Snow skittered, wind-wafted, gently to the ground to make a pleasant dusting outside. The baby Jesus was nestled safely in his crèche, under the tree where we always put him, his ceramic face looking in my direction, his closed mouth grinning ever so slightly. All was calm, all was bright.

There came a knock at the door. Now it was very cold outside and frosty borders formed on all the panes of glass in the windows, and as I said before it was snowing, and a little breezy. “Who could be out on a night like this?” I wondered. Someone knocked again. I had intended to let Joy or one of the kids answer the door, but where were they? Come to think of it, they were very quiet, which was not generally true of my kids in those days, they must be up to something and I resolved to check it out after I answered the door.

I expected maybe the paper boy, making his collection and hoping for a large Christmas tip. But then I remembered I don’t get the paper. Maybe some Jehovah’s witnesses, or some kids trying at the last minute to make quota on their Christmas Nut Cluster Fundraiser.

To my surprise, however, there stood on the porch a man of average height, sort of middle-eastern looking I guess, with a beard and long brown hair framing an intense face. “That look in his eyes,” I thought, “Like he can see through me.” He wore a robe, or not exactly a robe, more like a night gown. He wore no gloves. On his feet, only sandals. Despite his rather thin garments however, and the absence of gloves or suitable shoes, he didn’t seem to be cold. He appeared serene, completely calm, as if he didn’t mind the weather.

“Hello,” I said.

“I have come,” he said.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

He didn’t repeat himself, so I went ahead.

“I’m not expecting anyone?”

All the stranger said was, “I think you are.”

“Well, come in then,” I said. “You can’t stand out there in the cold all night.”

“You’re inviting me in, then?” he asked.

“Yes, yes. Come in before you freeze.”

He crossed the threshold and I quickly shut the door behind him and embraced myself and ran my hands up and down on my arms to take away the chill.

“Come warm up by the fire,” I urged him, but he still didn’t look cold.

“I have come,” he said again.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Did my wife call you?” I searched for signs of a pizza box, but he carried nothing. A shame really, I was a bit hungry after all that tree-hunting.

“No, you called me.” He said. “Though your wife called as well. You’ve been expecting me for a long time. At least that’s what you said.”

“What I said? When?”

“In church last week,” he continued. “I guess you actually sang it, not said it to tell the truth, but you called me; “O Come, O Come,” you said and you called me “Long Expected.”

At this point of course, I knew I had either let a crazy man or an actor into my house. Someone was playing a trick on me. At least I now knew what was up with the costume.

I decided for the time being, to play along.

“Ahh! Yes! Of course, I have been expecting you! But why come here and not somewhere else.”

“I do have many other places to go, but for now I am. Here,” he said.

“Well, make yourself at home,” I said. He just sat there looking at me. Not impatiently; he remained serene the entire time, but his stare unnerved me. And he seemed just as unfazed by his closeness to the fire as he did standing in the cold outside my door.

He looked like he was waiting for me to do something. Finally I remembered my manners, “I’m so sorry, I have offered you nothing, would you like some food or something to drink?”

He replied, but to some other question, “well, you seemed cold at the door, you’ll need a coat I think.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“You don’t want to freeze, do you?”

“Of course not, but that’s why I lit the fire,” I said.

“It’s a good fire, but we’re not staying here. That’s why you called me.”

“What?”

“You recited some words in church last Sunday about guiding your feet into the way of peace, and preparing the way, and making the rough ways smooth, etcetera…”

“Yes, it’s advent. Those were the scriptures from last week.” I recalled.

“Right, about my cousin, John,” he said.

“Ummm, yes.” This guy was really throwing himself into the role. I continued, with just a trace of worry, “We read those passages together as a congregation.”

“Well I’m here to guide your feet into the way of peace. The way that has been prepared. So, are you ready to go?”

“Well, I hadn’t counted on going anywhere exactly, not on a night like tonight!”

“What were you planning on doing then?” he asked.

“I was planning on sitting here, enjoying the fire. I’ve got a great book called the Christmas Box that I read every year, it’s very inspiring. I was planning on reading that later. I might make myself a little warm spiced cider. And of course, there are those chestnuts I bought. These are my advent traditions. It just wouldn’t be Christmastime without them.”

“But what about giving good news to the poor, proclaiming freedom for the captives, recovery of sight to the blind? What about releasing the oppressed and proclaiming the time of the Lord’s favor?

This guy sure knew how to ask a flurry of annoying questions!

“Yes, of course,” I said. “But that’s Luke chapter four. This is advent, and we’re still in Luke 2 and 3. And besides, it’s really cold outside.”

“Luke three?” he asked.

“Just a minute,” I said. I thought maybe, since he was here, I might be able to witness to him. He knew something of the scriptures it seemed, but only selected passages. So I ran to my library and selected a bible from my collection. I have maybe four or five different versions, plus commentaries and all sorts of study guides. Anyway, I picked the NIV since that is a bit easier for non-theologians, like this fellow, to understand.

I brought it out to him, open to Luke chapter 3, where it talks about John the Baptist and the baptism of repentance. I placed the opened bible in his hand. He looked down at it for a second, but then he looked up, staring at me with those eyes again, and with great, deep calm he began to speak,

“The Word of God came to John, son of Zecariah, in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the words of Isaiah the prophet,

A voice of one calling

In the wilderness, prepare a way for the Lord

Make his path straight.

Every valley shall be filled.

Every mountain laid low.

The crooked shall be made straight

And the rough places made smooth.

And all mankind will see the salvation of God.

 “The axe is at the root of the tree…” he continued without listening to me at all. “Bear fruit in keeping with repentence!”

He had moved on to a passage that wasn’t one of my favorites. Nonetheless, he really did have a gift for reading the scripture. So I said, “Beautifully read, sir!” I exclaimed. “You have considerable skills—you should come to our church and join our lay readers’ guild! You really make the word of God come alive!”

“Come alive?” he asked. “Would you like to live the Word instead of just reading it?”

“But the word of God IS my life already, my friend.”

“Not yet,” he said. “Though I would like to call you friend.”

“You have some nerve to be questioning my faith, sir.” I said, perhaps a bit too huffily.

“I have come, at your call, so that you might have life. You look to the scriptures so that you might have life, but will you follow me in the way and find life?”

“I’m beginning to lose my patience with you, sir,” I said. “Perhaps you had best be going. I did not call you; you must be mistaken about that. Someone is playing tricks on me and using you to do it. I love the spirit of Christmas. I love to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I have made here a happy home full of warmth and light and pleasant memories. I’m raising two wonderful children, I’m almost done my Christmas shopping, and I’m trying my best to have the spirit of Christmas at all times. In you come with your challenges and your insinuations and your demands that I leave my house with you on perhaps the worst night of the year. You’re messing up my advent! Don’t mess with my advent!”

He stared at me again and there appeared to be a tear sitting at the base of his eye. His gaze made me exceedingly uncomfortable, almost as if he could see everything about me with only a glance. But there was something else there as well, an invitation maybe, an invitation to a place that I longed to go. With him looking at me like that I began to think it was a mistake to ask him to leave.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not come to demand anything from you. I came because I thought you had invited me. It’s funny, almost everyone I visit has called for me, they’ve said the same words you said, and sang the same songs. When I visit them however, in answer to their call, and give them the opportunity to walk a new way with me, they always answer with a “don’t” or a “but”, like you did just now.

“It is just like Malachi wrote about me,” he said. And this time, he didn’t even turn the page of the bible, which still sat open in his lap. He simply spoke the words as if they came from somewhere deep inside him, “See I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come… the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming… But who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears?

“When John was sent ahead, he called my people to walk a different way, because I was coming. To cease their selfish quest for what little comfort and peace they could make for themselves, and begin giving themselves away.

“But then, as now, the people who said they delighted in me refused to turn away from their quest for comfort. The thing is,” and at this point, he looked into the fire and his eyes reflected the flames, “I am their comfort. I am their peace. If they would only turn to me I would give them life. I would refine you like gold and purify you like silver until you would shine brighter than the sun. If you would only realize that you can celebrate my coming by giving yourselves away to each other in self-denying love; this is much better than piles and piles of wrapped-up gifts, like those that sit under your trees.

“John proclaimed a baptism of repentance,” he continued, “which means turning—he called people to turn toward me and walk in the Way in which I walk. But instead, people looked at what they would be turning away from instead of the one they could turn toward. And the Way of self-giving love seemed to them harder to follow than the way of self-serving comfort!

“There are a few who’ve chosen to walk with me. Sadly, however, most have turned me away at the time of their visitation. You have asked me to turn away as well. I shall grant your desire and leave you now, but the choice I have given is always before you.”

Suddenly the stranger began to fade away before my very eyes! And then an odd sensation came over me, a sense of dread and warmth all at the same time. I closed my eyes and began to cry, softly at first, but then a bit louder.

“Wait! Wait! Don’t go! I want you to stay, Lord!” I cried out, and at that moment I awoke, still sitting in my easy chair, the fire sputtering, needing another log. I had extended my hands in my sleep, they hung in the air before me, as if reaching and pleading for something that I longed to receive but which was just out of reach.

“The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight,” I said softly to myself. “Indeed, he is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord.”

One of my children came bounding into the room. “Did you say something Daddy?”

I said, “The Lord is coming. Prepare the way of the Lord.”

“The choice is always before you,” she said, “Prepare the way of the Lord.”