Creator's Good Road is Close

There is something about Advent that asks us to sit with holy discomfort. While the world is already singing carols, stringing lights, and racing through to-do lists, here in the church the tone is different. Advent is slower. Advent is spacious. Advent is honest. It asks us not only to remember that Christ came long ago, but to prepare our lives and hearts for Christ’s coming now — and Christ’s coming again.

Last week, we heard Jesus in Matthew 24 speak unsettling words: Two will be in a field; one will be taken, and one left.

Words like these have often been used to frighten, divide, and sort humanity into categories — as though God is keeping lists of who belongs and who doesn’t. And today, we hear John the Baptist step out of the wilderness shouting about repentance, fire, axes laid at the roots of trees, grain separated from husks. These are not gentle images. They can make us brace, shrink, or scan anxiously for where we stand in relation to judgment.

So it’s fair to ask:

Where is the comfort? Where is the hope? Isn’t Advent supposed to lead us toward joy?

Maybe the hope is in the honesty.

Maybe Advent does not ask us to feel something — but to become something.

One of the reasons that we, from time to time, hear our scripture in other translations is to open us to new ways of hearing God’s message. During Advent, we will hear the Gospel and other readings from the First Nations Version of Scripture, which reframes the story through Indigenous worldview and spirituality. This particular translation, as shared in its introduction, prioritizes maintaining “the accuracy of the translation and its faithfulness to the intended meaning of the biblical writers within a First Nations context.” It is not a word-for-word translation, but a thought-for-thought translation, connecting to the original languages and speech patterns of over twenty-five North American tribes.

Let us hear John the Baptist’s words in this version:

“It is time to return to the right ways of thinking. Creator’s good road from above is close. It is time to begin walking it.”

Already the tone shifts. There is no “Repent or else.” But return. Come home. Realign yourself with who you were made to be.

Later, John says: “He is the one who will perform the purification ceremony with the fire of the Holy Spirit.”

Not fire meant to destroy — but a fire that heals, refines, and restores.

And finally: “His harvest basket is in his hands, to separate the grain from the husks.”

The same imagery we know — but now less courtroom judgment, more ceremony. Less fear, more transformation.

This week, in our book group, we explored the parable of the wheat and the tares, another parable from Matthew that deepens our understanding of the purificaton that John is proclaiming here. A refresher: a farmer plants good wheat, but weeds appear among the crop. The servants rush in, ready to rip them out. But the farmer stops them: “Let them grow together until the harvest.”

Why? Because wheat and tares look nearly identical while growing. Pulling the weeds too early would destroy the wheat.

For generations, this story has often been interpreted as God dividing good people from bad — saved from unsaved. A narrative similar to last week’s “one taken, one left” reading. But in God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us, Lizzie McManus Dail invites us to hear it differently.

She suggests that our tendency to interpret wheat and tares as a story of division is really an attempt to control a situation that is ultimately a mystery. In our book group, we reflected: what if the wheat and the weeds are not different groups of people — but different realities growing inside each one of us?

Because in every human heart, both are present. God planted compassion. Courage. Generosity. Curiosity. Hope. The longing to love and be loved.

But other seeds sprouted along the way: fear, shame, cynicism, scarcity, resentment, perfectionism, self-protection disguised as righteousness, the quiet belief — spoken or unspoken — that we are not enough.

Both grow together. Sometimes they are tangled. Sometimes they are indistinguishable. Fear may look like caution. Shame may look like humility. Resentment can pose as justice. Despair can disguise itself as realism.

Jesus says: do not rush the sorting. Do not uproot what you do not yet understand. Let time — and grace — reveal what gives life and what chokes it.

So when John speaks of the coming One with a winnowing fork in hand — shifting, sifting, separating wheat from husks — perhaps he’s not talking about people being divided against each other. Perhaps he is speaking of the inner work God longs to do within us.

The fire of God does not burn belovedness — it burns away everything that convinces us we are anything less than beloved. The fire of God does not destroy identity — it destroys the lies that cling to it. The fire of God is not punishment — it is purification, healing, releasing. John does not say Jesus will baptize us with fear — but with the Holy Spirit and fire. A refining fire. A freeing fire.

Perhaps Advent is not asking us:

Who is in or out? Who is wheat or husk? Who will be taken or left?

But instead:

What in me is wheat — and what is husk? What bears fruit — and what chokes life? What is growing in love — and what needs releasing?

Imagine Jesus holding that harvest basket tenderly before each of us, saying: This — your compassion, tenderness, courage — this I keep. But this fear, this shame, this lie you’ve carried too long — this can go to the fire. Not to harm you — but to free you.

Repentance, then, is not groveling. Not fear. Not shame. The First Nations Version reminds us: to repent is to return to the good road. To walk again toward wholeness. To remember what is true. To let Christ make room in us — room for justice, room for mercy, room for joy, room for love.

Right now, I can’t help but think of this in terms of nesting, as we prepare for our own new baby. A newborn does not refuse a messy or overcrowded house — but a family prepares anyway. We can strip away and release the stuff we do NOT need, so that it takes up less space, leaving more room for presence. Not because the baby won’t come otherwise — he is indeed coming — but because love longs to prepare room.

So this Advent we prepare. We look honestly. We release gently. We hold hope tenderly. Not because God is coming to inspect our progress — but because God is coming to dwell with us. Christ is coming. Not with shame — but with mercy. Not with fear — but with fire that heals. Not to divide beloved people — but to set them free.

Hear John’s voice again — not as threat, but as blessing: “It is time to return to the right ways of thinking. Creator’s good road from above is close. It is time to begin walking it.”

This is the heart of Advent: a season not only of waiting, but of becoming. Becoming ready, becoming whole, becoming more ourselves as God created us to be. Becoming willing to let the Spirit burn away what is false, so that love, hope, mercy, and joy may grow.

So this week, in the quiet moments, in the spaces between tasks, in the pauses when the world rushes past, ask yourself: what in me is wheat — and what is husk? What is ready to be released, and what deserves care and nurturing? What within me is this holy fire meant to consume, what is it meant to refine and strengthen? Where is God already at work, and where is God calling me to begin walking again?

May we return to the good road. Let us walk it together. Let us prepare room in our hearts, our homes, and our lives. Not out of fear, not out of scarcity, not out of judgment — but because love longs to dwell here.

Christ is coming. Not to condemn, but to redeem. Not to separate, but to unify. Not to take away, but to give — mercy, healing, life, and hope.

Here in this holy discomfort, this holy waiting, let us be ready. Let us walk the good road together.

Thanks be to God. Amen.