Prepare ye the Way of the Lord

Last night I went to see the touring company of Godspell at Charlotte's Knight Theater. It was a great production: great set, great cast, awesome musicians in the band. The venue was also excellent, because I was up in the cheap seats and I could see everything! They intentionally used references to Charlotte at various points to pull us in.
That in itself was amazing enough. A great cast presenting the Gospel of Matthew through song, dance and soliloquy was more than enough to touch my soul.  I had seen Godspell back in the 70's, and even played piano for Fayetteville Little Theater's local production of it. But nothing prepared me for the changes that Stephen Schwartz made to the score and to the story. He begins it with a new song about philosophy, science, cell phones, and more. It was hard to determine what the actors were singing, because they did many songs at once. The cacophony built to a roar as they began to act out the tower of Babel and folded into a revision of "Beautiful City". Just as it reaches fever pitch, John the Baptist breaks through with "Prepare ye the way of the Lord".
For me, this put into perspective the whole Advent season. It's not about the candles and wreaths.  It's not about too much opulence, too much food, too much partying and too many church services. It's not about presents that put us into debt. It's not about anything else except Jesus coming into our world. It's about turning off the cell phone, the TV, the iPhone/Pad/Pod, and the noise to listen for the breath of heaven. It's about, as one of the cast members listed in his biography, PREPRAYER YE THE WAY OF THE LORD! And that's not a typo.  Preprayer is a fusion of prepare and prayer that we need in our lives to truly find joy in this season. The focus must remain on Christ. All else is just window dressing.
Matthew 1:18 says "This is how Jesus the Messiah was born." (NLT) Preparing, praying and readying ourselves to receive - This IS how Jesus the Messiah is born again in each of our hearts.