Those of us who live in the north are reminded this time of year to put together an emergency kit. We put in a flashlight, hand warmers, something to kneel on, jumper cables, and more into a box that we keep in the trunk for the next few months. Because we never know when we’ll need it.

Jesus tells us to prepare for the Son of Man like that—prepare—because we never know…

I wonder if we are more attached to Jesus’s timing than we care to admit. Emergency planning for your car or house is as easy as putting a few things together and leaving them. But preparing for Jesus—for the transformation of the world—is a whole other thing. It’s not just getting ready, it’s being ready.

Preparing takes time. Preparing takes every day. And the mystery of the day…the hour…burns in us.

The planning Jesus spoke to in Sunday’s gospel had a sort of ongoing, daily vibe to it. Keep at it. Keep doing GOD’s work. Because we never know. This sounds more like the in-case-the-teacher-comes-back-in-the-room kind of preparing and not so much the prepare-for-emergencies kind.

As I preached Sunday, this preparation really shouldn’t get too confused with our preparations for Christmas. Preparations that include buying presents, decorating, and putting up Christmas trees. Our giving trees and collecting for food baskets certainly seems a bit closer to the preparing that Jesus is speaking to. The preparing we do in Advent is preparing for the Kingdom, not just Jesus; for justice, not just peace; for a new world, not just a holiday.

We prepare because we are assured of Jesus’s coming to us. We remember the incarnation in its moment in our history. We anticipate the coming again to reconcile the world. But we do this with the acknowledgment that He is with us now. That Jesus came, is here, will come again.

I’m preparing this year with the iPhone app “It’s Advent” by Church Publishing. It is using the Sermon on the Mount as part of our meditation process: perhaps my favorite part of Scripture. Yesterday we were reminded of the opening line to the Beatitudes, which reads:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

This sentence is pregnant with possibility. For it doesn’t say “blessed are the poor,” but “blessed are the poor in spirit,” a provocative notion that may mean, as I’ve written before, that we are called to become poor in spirit—that in self-emptying, we might become wise to the troubles around us.

I certainly would love to hear your thoughts on “poor in spirit”: what you hear, what it inspires in you. What it might mean for Advent.

This year, as we prepare ourselves for a Jesus that was, is, and will be, let us be moved by our preparations. Let us be thankful, not only for our blessings, but for our failings and challenges. Let us be hopeful for the transformation of the world that is currently occurring and will one day renew the face of the earth. Let us be attendant to the dreams and desires of GOD first, before our families. Let us see this as a season that marks a new chapter in our time with one another—a new chance to prepare with grace and fascination that GOD is doing amazing things with us.

Let us prepare for GOD’s sake.