Luke 3:4b-6
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all people will see God’s salvation, and they will see it together.’”
Today is the Second Sunday in Advent and the theme for today is Peace. The word ‘peace’ appears in the Bible somewhere in the vicinity of 400 times, plus or minus 50, depending on the translation you’re using.
If asked what peace is, the majority of us would likely respond with some variation of “an absence of war.” But for most of us the prayers we pray for peace center on peace in our own lives – the abused spouse who weeps and prays for just a little peace, the family with trouble-making neighbors who constantly create turmoil, inner-city families who have had gang shootings move into their neighborhoods, parents who can’t sleep at night for fear they won’t be able to find a job and feed their families, someone with a recent cancer diagnosis. In all these cases it is fear, not war, that is the opposite of our peace.
The hopeful texts of Advent tell us that peace will come. Not only the personal peace for worried parents and exhausted workers, but the global “lion and lamb” kind of peace promised, again, through Isaiah’s voice: The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. This is the peace that comes with a world-wide freedom from fear. This is the ultimate peace—when all God’s creation can be at peace with itself and with each other.
Our scripture for this second Sunday in Advent comes from Luke’s gospel but these words actually come from Isaiah who Luke is quoting here. Luke tells us that “the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” This is obviously, the one we call John the Baptist, the one who came to tell us to “prepare the way of the Lord.” The part that we read to begin today is Luke using Isaiah’s words to describe John’s call to ‘prepare’.
The interesting thing that I think we emphasize far too little when we read this text each year – whether directly from Isaiah or from Luke – is that these are not things that the Promised One will be doing when he arrives. These are things that we must be doing to prepare for his arrival.
We live today in a world of conflict and fear. Most of the hatred and fighting in our country today stems from fear – fear of losing something, fear of having to give something up – and largely, I suspect, fear of having to acknowledge that just perhaps we may have been wrong.
The One who comes at Christmas does not come to save us from God’s wrath or some ancient punishment. He comes to save us from ourselves. We have somehow fashioned a world where we have become comfortable with inequality, with injustice. Where we have somehow become content to know that some live well and some barely live.
Not content to destroy each other we are also destroying the world we live in along with all the other creatures who live here. We see the wrong but don’t know how to fix it. We need to be saved from ourselves. “Come, O long expected Jesus...from our fears and sins release us...
But while we wait, we have work to do. There are paths to make straight and valleys to be filled and mountains and valleys to level out. The rough ways made smooth and crooked ways made straight. Rocky roads of resentment to be smoothed and valleys of institutionalized greed to be filled in. Long crooked roads of the unequal distribution of life’s necessities to be straightened out. Mountains of entrenched power to be leveled and valleys of powerlessness to be filled. And life needs to be restored to this beautiful earth God gave us.
The call is for now, not some nebulous future, not some distant past. We must be up and doing now. And if we are focused, not just on our own lives but on the lives of all God’s creation -- if we truly desire the coming of the Hope and Peace that Advent offers us, then there is Joy to be found in the work – joy in living out the call of God’s desire for us all – for such living is rooted in Love. It is our task to prepare the way – to make a space for Peace to exist.
We need to do God’s work here absolutely believing in what we do. Trusting God’s words and holding to faith in God’s promises.
And, little as we like the word, we need to repent of the wrongs we’ve allowed to grow around us – and then we need to change them. I believe in The promises of Advent. I believe in Hope. I believe in the promise of Peace. I long for God’s Joy and believe they will all come when we truly learn to Love – freely and honestly caring for each other – each and every other.
May God’s Peace be in us and with us and move us to build a world for God’s love and peace.
Amen.
If asked what peace is, the majority of us would likely respond with some variation of “an absence of war.” But for most of us the prayers we pray for peace center on peace in our own lives – the abused spouse who weeps and prays for just a little peace, the family with trouble-making neighbors who constantly create turmoil, inner-city families who have had gang shootings move into their neighborhoods, parents who can’t sleep at night for fear they won’t be able to find a job and feed their families, someone with a recent cancer diagnosis. In all these cases it is fear, not war, that is the opposite of our peace.
The hopeful texts of Advent tell us that peace will come. Not only the personal peace for worried parents and exhausted workers, but the global “lion and lamb” kind of peace promised, again, through Isaiah’s voice: The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. This is the peace that comes with a world-wide freedom from fear. This is the ultimate peace—when all God’s creation can be at peace with itself and with each other.
Our scripture for this second Sunday in Advent comes from Luke’s gospel but these words actually come from Isaiah who Luke is quoting here. Luke tells us that “the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” This is obviously, the one we call John the Baptist, the one who came to tell us to “prepare the way of the Lord.” The part that we read to begin today is Luke using Isaiah’s words to describe John’s call to ‘prepare’.
The interesting thing that I think we emphasize far too little when we read this text each year – whether directly from Isaiah or from Luke – is that these are not things that the Promised One will be doing when he arrives. These are things that we must be doing to prepare for his arrival.
We live today in a world of conflict and fear. Most of the hatred and fighting in our country today stems from fear – fear of losing something, fear of having to give something up – and largely, I suspect, fear of having to acknowledge that just perhaps we may have been wrong.
The One who comes at Christmas does not come to save us from God’s wrath or some ancient punishment. He comes to save us from ourselves. We have somehow fashioned a world where we have become comfortable with inequality, with injustice. Where we have somehow become content to know that some live well and some barely live.
Not content to destroy each other we are also destroying the world we live in along with all the other creatures who live here. We see the wrong but don’t know how to fix it. We need to be saved from ourselves. “Come, O long expected Jesus...from our fears and sins release us...
But while we wait, we have work to do. There are paths to make straight and valleys to be filled and mountains and valleys to level out. The rough ways made smooth and crooked ways made straight. Rocky roads of resentment to be smoothed and valleys of institutionalized greed to be filled in. Long crooked roads of the unequal distribution of life’s necessities to be straightened out. Mountains of entrenched power to be leveled and valleys of powerlessness to be filled. And life needs to be restored to this beautiful earth God gave us.
The call is for now, not some nebulous future, not some distant past. We must be up and doing now. And if we are focused, not just on our own lives but on the lives of all God’s creation -- if we truly desire the coming of the Hope and Peace that Advent offers us, then there is Joy to be found in the work – joy in living out the call of God’s desire for us all – for such living is rooted in Love. It is our task to prepare the way – to make a space for Peace to exist.
We need to do God’s work here absolutely believing in what we do. Trusting God’s words and holding to faith in God’s promises.
And, little as we like the word, we need to repent of the wrongs we’ve allowed to grow around us – and then we need to change them. I believe in The promises of Advent. I believe in Hope. I believe in the promise of Peace. I long for God’s Joy and believe they will all come when we truly learn to Love – freely and honestly caring for each other – each and every other.
May God’s Peace be in us and with us and move us to build a world for God’s love and peace.
Amen.
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