Aspects of Preparedness

A sermon delivered by Rev. Dr. Randy K. Hammer, March 10, 2019

Luke 3:2-18 NKJV

How prepared are you?  That is a wide open question, isn’t it?  Because there are many different types of preparedness.  One of the reasons we have focused so much attention on security issues these past twelve months is because we want to be better prepared for any number of emergency situations – storm threat, fire, medical emergency or armed intruder – that might arise.  But being prepared – or not being prepared – touches so many different aspects of our lives.

I am one who likes to be prepared, and if I feel unprepared for some upcoming responsibility, I cannot rest.  For instance, I like to be prepared ahead of time when it comes to my Sunday responsibilities at church.  I like to have a sermon draft, children’s sermon, and other preparations completed by midday on Thursday, if possible.  Then if an emergency happens to come up on Friday or Saturday, such as an unexpected death and funeral service to prepare, I am still ready for Sunday’s services. 

Something that happened the first year I started preaching likely conditioned me this way.  I was working part-time, going to college fulltime, and preaching on Sunday at a small rural church.  Those first few months, I had the habit of waiting until Saturday to prepare a sermon for Sunday.  Well, one Saturday morning I got a telephone call informing me that the mother of one of the leaders in the church I was serving was in the hospital and was close to dying.  So on midday Saturday, I readied myself to go to the hospital to sit with the family.  For the longest time we thought every breath was going to be her last.  So I ended up staying at the hospital until up in the afternoon.  When I finally got home late Saturday, I still didn’t have any sermon thoughts to share the next morning.  That never happened again.  From that time forward, I have always tried to prepare my sermon at the beginning, instead of at the end, of the week.

This sense of needing to be prepared has spilled over into other areas of my ministry as well.  I have worked hard to have ready what I feel is a very meaningful graveside service that can bring comfort to any family anywhere that I can provide in a moment’s notice.  For instance, supposing one of the funeral homes in town were to call me, saying, “Rev. Hammer, we have a graveside service planned a couple of hours from now, and the minister who was supposed to lead it has taken ill or had an accident and can’t do it.  Could you possibly lead the graveside service for us?”  “Why, yes I can,” I could answer, for I am prepared.  The same thing applies to a wedding service, bedside ritual for the passing, and so on.  

I also take comfort in being prepared when it comes to my clothing.  As much as possible, I like to have all of my clean pants and shirts ironed and prepared and hanging in good order in my closet so that I can pull whatever outfit I need off the rack at will.  

Being prepared – it applies to so many areas of our lives, and it holds much more importance for some than it does for others, especially when it comes to religion.

About an hour and a half east of here, just outside the city limits of Greeneville, the town I look upon as my hometown (even though I grew up in the country), there is a sign advertising the “Christian Bookstore, 7 miles ahead.”  I have not been in that bookstore for decades, but when I first started preaching (long before the days of the Internet and ordering books online), that Christian Bookstore was the only place around to buy Bibles, commentaries and inspirational books.  So there was a time when I visited that bookstore quite often.  I did not realize it back then, but the owner of that bookstore was active in the most fundamentalist church in town, and he was himself a fundamentalist of the strictest order.  At any rate, at the bottom of that sign advertising and giving directions to the Christian Bookstore used to be the phrase, “Prepare to Meet Thy God.”

Now, most anyone who has driven around our southern states has seen similar signs along state highways that warn, “Prepare to Meet God.”  Do you know the history behind those signs?  Well, let me tell you; I find it to be quite interesting.  Those “Prepare to Meet God” signs, which were quite common a few decades ago and at first were made out of wood but later constructed of concrete, as well as other signs that read “Jesus Saves,” “Where Will You Spend Eternity?” “Jesus Is Coming Soon,” and so on were for the most part created, financed, and erected by one man.  His name was Henry Harrison Mayes, a coal miner for 43 years from Fork Ridge, Tennessee, just south of Middlesboro, Kentucky.  Mayes made a commitment to honor God after recovering from a terrible coal mining accident.  As a young man he was crushed between a coal car and the wall of a coal mine.  The doctors told his wife that he would not survive the night.  But somehow he miraculously recovered and lived to make and erect hundreds of wooden and concrete religious highways signs in over two dozen states.  Such was his way of seeking to honor God with the life he was given.  So now you know the rest of the story.

But regarding the phrase, “Prepare to Meet God,” it actually comes from the eighth-century Hebrew prophet Amos (4:12).  When uttered, it was a warning to ancient Israel that God was on the verge of judging them for their empty religion and show of sacrifices, while their lives were full of transgressions, oppression of the poor, and gross social injustices.  But in 20^th century America, Christian fundamentalists like Henry Harrison Mayes and the Christian Bookstore owner that I mentioned earlier adopted Amos’s 2700-year-old message to support their belief in an imminent judgment day of God that could take place at any second.

Well, what led to all of this talk about being prepared is the Lenten-appropriate passage I read about John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness as he quoted the prophet Isaiah, saying, “Prepare the way of the Lord!”  Isaiah had spoken to the people of his own time – some 500-plus years before John – promising them that God was about to bring home the Jewish exiles who had been carried off to Babylon, so a way needed to be prepared for God to make that happen.  So Isaiah’s call to “Prepare the way of the Lord” originally was a word of promise and good news.

It seems that John the Baptist got caught up in the religious fervor of his own day that offered the hope that God was about to intervene in history so as to set things right in the world and deliver Israel from their current oppressors, so he drew on and gave new meaning to Isaiah’s ancient prophecy.  Many of John’s day believed that God would send a deliverer, a Messiah, who would be God’s representative on earth, separating the righteous from the wicked.  Thus, all had better get their lives in order through repentance, deeds of compassion, honesty, and justice; in general be washed clean of past transgressions and make a commitment to live a life acceptable to God who would be judging them soon.

Well, we don’t have to buy into southern roadside religion that warns “Prepare to Meet God.”  And we don’t have to buy into the mindset of John the Baptist and other first-century zealots who believed God’s deliverer on earth and God’s judge was imminent.  Nevertheless, the injunction and the importance of being prepared should not be lost on us.  We should not throw out the baby with the bath water, as they say.  “Prepare” is a watch-word of the Season of Lent, which began this week.  Lent is a 6 1/2-week period of spiritual preparation prior to the most important day of the Christian Year, Easter Sunday.  During Lent we pause to take a close look at our lives to see where change might be in order and improvements might need to be made.

Indeed, we do well every now and then to stop and take stock of our lives and ask ourselves if we are, indeed, prepared for whatever the future might hold for us.  Are we prepared by having our personal house in order as far as finances, steps to self-sufficiency or financial independence, personal relationships, having a clear conscience, and especially end-of-life issues are concerned?

On a lighter note, back in the days when gas station attendants actually pumped the gas for you, a minister was waiting in a long line to have his car filled up before a long holiday weekend.  When the minister’s turn to pull up to the gas pump finally came, the attendant apologized: “Reverend, I’m so sorry about the delay.  It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to prepare for a long trip.”  The minister chuckled and then replied, “I know what you mean.  It’s the same in my business too.”  Few of us want to think about making preparations for that last, long journey.

“Prepare the way of the Lord,” John’s call resounds down through the centuries.  The key word for this season of Lent is “prepare.”  It matters not whether we are conservative or liberal, religiously speaking.  Each of us may filter the call to “prepare” in different ways, but the necessity to be prepared applies to all of us.  Does it not?  So the question that falls to each of us is, “In what ways might my life need preparation during this Lenten Season?”  Amen.