Prepare Ye

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great Light" Isaiah 9:2.

This week, many of our Level I children as young as three years old heard these words spoken eight centuries before Jesus Christ was born. God is preparing His people for a gift, we tell them, and through the prophets, God tells us for what and whom, and even where, we should look.

A light. A star. A ruler. A son. Born of a Virgin. Emmanuel: God with us. Bethlehem. A child with authority. Wonder Counselor. God-Hero. Father-Forever. Price of Peace.

All of these things the prophets foretold. As we prepare these children to celebrate the mystery of Christmas, all of these signs point to that child who lays there in a feed box for animals. It's an incredible paradox: King of the world. Foretold for centuries. Heralded by angels. Lying in a manger?

It's all there, just like the prophets said, but it isn't quite as we might expect it. Good thing God pointed the way for all those years, or we might have missed it!

As the children grow, we offer further reflections on the Messiah "who is to come" from the prophets. In Level II (for 1st-3rd grades) and Level III (4th-6th) we hear about the incredible peace that will flood the earth. The wolf will lay down with the lamb. The young lion and the calf shall browse with the young child to lead them. No harm or ruin on all my holy mountain. The earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord as water covers the sea. There will be no mourning or wailing. Death will be destroyed forever.

Is this what we see on Christmas? Even the most stubborn optimist would have to admit it is not. Jesus is the Savior, and He did come to establish His kingdom. Yet we wait for the day when "everything is subjected to him" and "God will be all in all" 1 Cor 15:28.

With the children, we reflect deeply on the prophets' words because they have relevance for us today. The prophets had a call, a vocation, to listen deeply to the word of God--to encounter Him in their own hearts. From the depths of this relationship of listening, the prophet speaks God's message. It is not just to the people of their time, but of our time as well. Their words not only prepare us to recognize and accept Jesus Christ who is born on Christmas morning as the Messiah foretold, but to look and prepare carefully for the Parousia: that time in which God will be all in all.