If you find the holiday season extremely depressing, you are not alone. Lots of other people do too, and I don’t want to ignore how hard this season is for so many people. But for most folks, this is a warm, snuggly time of year (and of course, it’s that expectation that just makes it harder for people who are sad). But the Christmas lights have been lit in College Park; Christmas music is everywhere you go, and feel-good Christmas movies like Miracle on 34^th Street will soon be playing practically non-stop on TV.

And our readings seem to heighten this sense of all-is-right-with-the-world wellbeing. Our lesson from Isaiah begins, “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.” And, as we begin to sink our teeth into this new church year (year B) in which Mark’s gospel is featured, we start with the very first line from that book, and what a comforting start it is: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”

Ah! Good news. Good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. “Comfort, O comfort my people.” Good news. Comfort. Good will toward men. Peace on Earth. A log on the fire. All is right with the world.

Enter John the Baptizer — wild-eyed, with wild hair — a leather belt around his waist, clothed with camel’s hair, eating locusts and wild honey, looking and sounding like Elijah, the long-dead wild prophet of old. “PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD! MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT! YOU ARE SINNERS. SINNERS! REPENT! REPENT! YOU NEED TO BE FORGIVEN!!! YES, YOU!”

Now, what do you wanna go and do that for? Isaiah was comforting us, and Mark just told us that this is about the good news. We were in a warm, snuggly mode, a decorations and eggnog, all-is-right-with-the-world, Christmasy feeling mode. We were — until you showed up at the party.

Why would God send an obnoxious, uninvited, loud, wild man like John — who clearly lacks the social graces — to our Christmas party? I think it’s because without John to ruin the party, we can very easily pay more attention to the ritual of celebration, to the party for the party’s sake, than to what we are celebrating. When it comes to Christmas, it’s very easy to get swept up in the celebration mode and ignore the mode we really need to be in — gratitude.

Christmas should be about gratitude, and we won’t be grateful if we just keep humming Carols, sipping eggnog, having a good time and being polite, and no one lacks the social skills to shout to us why we should be so, so grateful for God’s action at Christmas. We need this uninvited guest to ruin the party, to shout to us, “Here’s your challenge: PREPARE THE WAY OF THE LORD! MAKE HIS PATHS STRAIGHT! And here’s who you are: YOU ARE SINNERS. SINNERS! REPENT! REPENT! YOU NEED TO BE FORGIVEN!!! YES, YOU!”

I don’t want to bum out the people who already find the Holiday Season depressing, or even those who don’t. The point isn’t to be bummed out or to feel bad about yourself. The point is to hear the truth. John bursts into our Christmas party and, lacking social skills as he does, blurts out the truth. We do need to be forgiven. We do make a mess of so many things. We are so imperfect in all our relationships. My DOCC students know where this is headed: God looks at us, all of us together and each of us individually, and says, “You ain’t right. There is something seriously wrong with you.” And wild-eyed John hollers it.

That is the message we need to get to prepare for Christmas. Not so we feel bad about ourselves, but so that, in hearing the truth, we can feel good, really good, and grateful, really grateful, about what God does to deal with these folks, me and you, who just ain’t right.

Enjoy the season, but be different. Don’t just let the period before Christmas be about shopping, and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, and chasing an ideal of a warm, fuzzy time of the year. Challenge how you live in the world. Challenge what you do with your treasure. Challenge what is important to you, and how that is manifested in your life.

Be different. Prepare the way of the Lord. In your heart. In your life. And then you will be prepared to be — you won’t be able to help but be —profoundly grateful when the time comes to celebrate how God is so profoundly gracious — to all us folks who really, as John hollered in our ear, just ain’t right.