Let's see the salvation sent from God this morning. We are going to see it in a simple yet real life story of a bird named Noah, and some unexpected friends.

To hear the story, to be ready for it, we must prepare, and that's the key word in our text this morning—prepare. Set up. Arrange. Organize. Get ready. Get your game face on. Move what needs to be moved. Clear the surfaces that are cluttered. Prepare, yes prepare, because it's not just a story of a bird we'll hear, no, we're coming into the season where we celebrate God's love entering into the world to surround us.  

On this peaceful, snow-covered morning, we'll look at three steps we can do to prepare the way for the Lord's coming. First, we can clear the road or pathway for him. Second, the valleys will be filled and the mountains leveled. And, finally, to prepare for the Lord's coming, the curves will be straightened and the rough places made smooth.

Note all three points come from verses four and five of our reading today. Let's use scripture and start with the first point. To prepare, we can clear the road or the pathway for him. Yes, yes, we'll talk about a feathered friend soon enough, but here, to start our first point, I want to talk, oddly enough, about closet space. Specifically, I want to talk about walk-in closets. You've seen them, or perhaps you have one yourself. They are those room-sized areas that could probably hold, if empty, a good-sized row boat.

Now I don't have one of these closets. I want one, but that day may never come. And it's good because this makes a great sermon illustration.

While there's no WIC where I live (walk in closet), there is, at the top of the stairs on the second floor, what's commonly and less affectionately called the dark closet. Yeah, you can imagine the dark closet. Yes, you're right. It's dark. But it's also very long. And it's very, very narrow.

And yes, of course, over these past two weeks, most of us moved out the final fall stuff and pull out boxes that say Christmas.

To make a clear road for the Lord's coming means ridding ourselves of the obstacle course to get to Jesus. No matter what sized closet you have, or whether you're super organized or not, you know that there is stuff in your way toward Jesus.

The stuff I'm talking about here aren't decorative scarecrows, ceramic pumpkins, and box or osculating fans from this past summer that haven't quite found their way out of the way, the stuff I'm talking about—stuff we all have—is busyness or a lack of long-term attention. If we are honest with ourselves, we know we keep our lives full of the things we don't need rather than clearing a way for God to talk and spend even more time with us. Think about this. How much time do you spend a day on trivial, unimportant thoughts when you could be reflecting on God's perfect love for you?

Listen, we are all guilty of this. If we added up the minutes spent each day on things that really don't matter and set that number beside the number of minutes we spend appreciating God and all given to us, I think we'd be surprised.

It's easy for all of us to get caught up in the little things instead of seeing the big picture of who God is, and what God provides us with every minute of every day. But Advent is the perfect season for that to change.

Whether you embrace it or not, there is an event called Spring Cleaning. We all know that Spring Cleaning doesn't necessarily have to take place anywhere from March to May; a Spring Cleaning can happen at any time of the year, including Advent. John the Baptist is telling us here today to clear the road for the Lord's coming. Clearing the road doesn't mean creating a walkway in your own dark closet or basement to pull out the tree ornaments, clearing a road for the coming of the Lord means making a path for your heart and your soul to find and be with Jesus. And that path can be made and shared with those here around you. That's our first point.

And our second point this morning is in our preparing, we can fill valleys and level mountains with God's help because, if we remember point two from last week's sermons, God gives us everything we need.  Now clearing, filling and leveling sounds like a lot of work. But consider something here in scripture. Take your scripture sheets again and scan those first few verses. You come across names like Pilate, Herod and Caiaphas. These three were the most powerful leaders in Palestine, but they were upstaged by a wilderness prophet from rural Judea. God chose to speak through the loner, John the Baptist, who has gone down in history as greater than any of the rulers of his day.

John went down as one of the greatest because of the clearing, filling and the leveling he did so that he could stand on firm ground in his relationship to God. In talking about firm ground and a relationship with God, we talked about trials last week. Like John, the prophet named by God before his birth to be the one to announce the Messiah, we've all fallen into holes. Here in scripture they are called valleys. We've all had enormous obstacles before us. It's fair and accurate that we call them mountains. God, through John, encourages us to fill the holes and level the mountains not for something we did wrong—this isn't a punishment—instead, the message here of filling valleys and leveling mountains is an opportunity to grow. While John encourages us in his words here, what you do with that opportunity is yours.  

Our third and final point this morning is this: for all of who listen to and follow God, curves will be straight and the rough places made smooth. We must, however, truly listen to, and follow God, and that is not always easy because we still think we know what's best for us. We still think we should be the ones who control the floodgate on our trials and our hardships.

Some of us here this morning have had a difficult or trying time, or are going through some real challenges at work or at home. We're looking for something we can hold onto. We're looking for something that, like our candle lit, will bring us peace.

And the answer to that, the enables valleys to be filled and mountains to be leveled is our Lord God. And this happens when we let God do what God does in His time and with his touch. Here we need to see that the curves John talks about can be made straight when we focus not on ourselves—because left alone most of us would go in circles—but on the God we know who has limitless love, and that limitless love will support us, even when there are times we may feel alone.

John really does say something important here about the rough places being made smooth. It's important because it's true: we all have, have had or will have rough places. We have places that we know can be made far less rough or course. That said, give what you need to give to God this morning. Trust the Holy Spirit will meet you. That Spirit will not only meet you, with God's love, that Spirit will embrace you. Do you have a valley of despair, or a mountain that, just so tall, seems to have no peak? Is your road just a little too windy? Is your job stressing you out? Is there that class or that kid at school making life a little too tough? Is your life as a caregiver challenging? Give it to God. Give it to God and in turn, God will give back hope and peace, which were the two candles lit this morning.

Listen, life can be challenging. The following story of Noah is the one I'll end with because in it there are challenges you'll identify with easily. This true story, with pictures to prove it, begins in hardship like some of us are going through. 

A litter of five baby rabbits, about six days old, were attacked by a dog and orphaned. Two out of the litter did not make it, and the remaining three were not doing well. 

Noah is a non-releasable, one-legged homing pigeon/rock dove that is in a rehab centre. Noah kept going over to the bunny cage and looking in -- even sleeping in front of the door to the cage.

Then, suddenly, there were only two little ones in the cage. But when Noah moved a bit from the front of the cage to everyone's surprise...there was the tiny rabbit under Noah's wing......sound asleep! That little bunny had crawled through the cage.

Now they are all together and the bunnies are doing wonderfully well. When the bunnies scoot underneath Noah's feathers, he carefully extends his wings out to surround them and they snuggle. When one of them moves and they start sticking out here and there, he gently pushes them back under him with his beak! It is beautiful and amazing to see.

Remember we started this morning's sermon talking about how we, the people of God, will see salvation sent from God. To see how God loves and cares for you, prepare. Prepare for Christmas. Prepare by filling in valleys, leveling mountains, making crooked roads straight again and rough places smooth. Yes, prepare. Prepare to find that wing of God under who's care you will be saved.

This story of Noah and the rabbits is a simple story, but a true one. Think about it. Coming out of what can be considered its own long, dark closet, this little rabbit did not see what could have been danger—we don't know, truly, what Noah would have done until after the fact—but this little rabbit shows us that, no matter where we are, no matter or hardships or loss, we can get out of our own cage.