All of us have a history, whether we know it or not. My personal history, that I can remember, goes back through my parents, to my grandparents, and to one of my great grandparents. My ancestry is half Swedish. One of my cousins from this side of the family traced our ancestors back as far as 1762, 240 years ago.

The older we get, the more we become part of the history of other people. My wife and I have four children and we are part of their history. At this point there is some bad news and some good news for me. The bad news is that I am still waiting for grandchildren. The good news is that only one of our children is married.

God also has a history. This history is called salvation history, a history of how God has been acting to save humankind. Although we have a hard time understanding someone who is eternal, the Bible tells us how God has acted in our history. God intervened in Egypt about 3,300 years ago to help the Hebrews flee from their slavery. God also worked through Kings David and Solomon about 300 years later.

During our Profession of Faith in a few minutes, we will repeat the Nicene Creed saying that God spoke through the Prophets. They intervened for God with the Hebrew people who were worshipping false gods and taking advantage of the poor about 2,700 years ago.

God's ultimate intervention in our history came about 2,000 years ago when he appeared in the flesh as Jesus Christ. This is a God who loves us so much that he came to live among us so that we could experience him.

Today used to be called Gaudate Sunday, gaudate meaning "rejoice." We rejoice as we draw nearer to the birth of Christ who intervened in our history. We also wait in anticipation for Christ's Second Coming at the end of our earthly history. This Savior continues to give us the choice to be with him for eternity.

In today's gospel we heard that John the Baptist announced to his contemporaries the beginning of Jesus' ministry among us, the time when he tells and shows us the way to eternal life.

John the Baptist was a new prophet because he was sent from God to testify about Jesus. John caught the attention of many people in Israel and they wanted to know who he was. He was very clear to explain that he was not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor one of the prophets of old. John was a voice crying out to prepare the way of the Lord.

If I never have any grandchildren, my part of the Hunt family will end with my children. In a similar way, Christianity is just one generation away from disappearing from earth. This is possible if we do not pass on our faith to the next generation.

What John the Baptist did to announce the first coming of Christ during his time , we must now do for the people of our time so that they will remember Christ's first coming and be prepared for his second coming.

Our God continues to intervene in our history through the Holy Spirit. We have been baptized with the Holy Spirit. It is this same Holy Spirit who puts words in our mouths to aid us in telling our family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors about Jesus.

God has worked uniquely in each one of our lives. All we have to do is tell others our own story about how God has done this. It's our story and it isn't wrong. Once we tell others how we have experienced God working in our lives, then we too have prepared the way of the Lord.