Our lives are pointing to something or to someone. We are telling a story by the way we live. And make no mistake about it, our neighbors are listening to what the Church says, and are watching what the Church does. Right or wrong, fair or unfair, they are drawing conclusions about the truthfulness and the usefulness of the gospel based upon what they see and hear in us. They’re drawing conclusions about Jesus, based upon the lives of Jesus’ people. This Sunday we encounter Zechariah who, with his wife Elizabeth, had spent his whole life waiting for the salvation of Israel. Their son, John, would be the one to announce and point to the birth of Jesus as the fulfillment of the promised coming of God’s peace and light. Advent reminds us that our vocation is both to wait and prepare like Zechariah and Elizabeth and then to live in a way that our lives point to Jesus and the hope, peace, joy, and love he brings.