Isaiah 11:1-2, 6-9 (NRSV)
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
*********
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Today is the Second Sunday in Advent and our theme is “peace.” I don’t know how each one of you would define peace, but there is certainly a variety of options to choose among. For some it might be quiet, a simple absence of constant surrounding noise. For others it might be an absence of stress. For others, security. I think one definition that might be the choice of a great many of us all around the world would be simply, the cessation of war. No more war. No fighting. No killing.....Peace.
I think we could all agree that peace is a good thing – a desirable thing – something we want.
The reading we just read is a very peaceful one. It paints a lovely picture of a world with no more violence – a “peaceful” world for humans and creatures and for the earth itself. It is an idyllic promise of what the coming Messiah will bring to us, but it says nothing at all about how we will get to this desired outcome.
Change doesn’t come without struggle. Sometimes actual pain is involved and sometimes, even death. Even at its best, change is often a messy business, depending on what it is that first requires changing. In another part of Isaiah, a little further along, we find him relating the coming of peace to the achievement of justice.
Only when there is justice will there be peace – peace and quietness and trust. Through all these centuries we have achieved little justice for much of the world, and so there is little peace.
There is a famous line from Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech, which reads: “Gentlemen may cry, ‘peace, peace, but there is no peace.’” I remember learning this line from Henry’s speech, but now I find that he himself was quoting from the prophet Jeremiah: "They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially, Saying, 'Peace, peace,' But there is no peace.” A very similar line can be found in Ezekiel, as well.
Even when we move from the Old Testament to the New, while Jesus makes many promises of peace – My peace I give you, my peace I leave you, for instance – even here there is one of his more puzzling statements: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) Peace, it appears, often has to be fought for.
Peace has been longed for and prayed for these thousands of years – and still we have no peace. So why are we talking about it here on this Second Sunday of Advent? Perhaps for the same reason we talked about Hope last week. Hope is an unfinished business and we, sitting right here, have a role to play in bringing it closer to reality.
In the same way, peace is an unfinished business, and here also we all have a role to play. We are unlikely to prove instrumental in changing the actions of world leaders – although we certainly can play a part in choosing who those leaders will be. But, as usually comes out when we have this sort of discussion, we can play a part in bringing justice and peace to those who may be all around us every day.
Since we’re reading John Pavlovitz for our daily meditation this year, and I’m also reading one of his books, you can expect to hear a lot from him through these weeks.
There is one piece, in Hope and Other Superpowers, that really struck me when I first read it, and I have been re-reading it almost every day since, just to remind myself of it. In this part of his book he is speaking about un-sung heroes – those who may not look at all heroic but who are facing severe challenges every day and yet they keep going.
He says, “...we are at any given moment surrounded by throngs of people who, despite what we know about their roads or their pasts or their intentions, are trying as hard as they can to figure it all out and to keep it together, with varying degrees of success or failure. You and I are living with, working alongside, driving past and waiting in line with hurting, scared, persistent, heroically courageous people who have seen and endured and survived nightmares we can’t imagine, and we should approach each of them with awe and reverence.”
Let me repeat that last part: “You and I are living with, working alongside, driving past and waiting in line with hurting, scared, persistent, heroically courageous people who have seen and endured and survived nightmares we can’t imagine, and we should approach each of them with awe and reverence.”
Even if we know someone’s traumas, unless we’ve faced the same situations ourselves, we still don’t know, and we still can’t fix them. What we can and must do is love them, and respect them, and allow them to be themselves, offering help if ever that is a workable option, and offering acceptance if help doesn’t help.
This, it seems to me, is at the heart of our centuries long search for both justice and peace. And this, I believe, is the peace we are offered this Sunday in Advent, because this peace lies at the heart of all peace, all justice.
As I read recently in a fb meme – “You will never look into the eyes of someone God does not love. Always be kind.” Maybe it truly is as simple as that. It worked for Jesus.
May you make peace and live in peace this Advent season and always.
I think we could all agree that peace is a good thing – a desirable thing – something we want.
The reading we just read is a very peaceful one. It paints a lovely picture of a world with no more violence – a “peaceful” world for humans and creatures and for the earth itself. It is an idyllic promise of what the coming Messiah will bring to us, but it says nothing at all about how we will get to this desired outcome.
Change doesn’t come without struggle. Sometimes actual pain is involved and sometimes, even death. Even at its best, change is often a messy business, depending on what it is that first requires changing. In another part of Isaiah, a little further along, we find him relating the coming of peace to the achievement of justice.
- Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,
and righteousness abide in the fruitful field.
The effect of righteousness will be peace,
and the result of righteousness, quietness, and trust forever.
Only when there is justice will there be peace – peace and quietness and trust. Through all these centuries we have achieved little justice for much of the world, and so there is little peace.
There is a famous line from Patrick Henry’s “give me liberty or give me death” speech, which reads: “Gentlemen may cry, ‘peace, peace, but there is no peace.’” I remember learning this line from Henry’s speech, but now I find that he himself was quoting from the prophet Jeremiah: "They have healed the brokenness of my people superficially, Saying, 'Peace, peace,' But there is no peace.” A very similar line can be found in Ezekiel, as well.
Even when we move from the Old Testament to the New, while Jesus makes many promises of peace – My peace I give you, my peace I leave you, for instance – even here there is one of his more puzzling statements: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34) Peace, it appears, often has to be fought for.
Peace has been longed for and prayed for these thousands of years – and still we have no peace. So why are we talking about it here on this Second Sunday of Advent? Perhaps for the same reason we talked about Hope last week. Hope is an unfinished business and we, sitting right here, have a role to play in bringing it closer to reality.
In the same way, peace is an unfinished business, and here also we all have a role to play. We are unlikely to prove instrumental in changing the actions of world leaders – although we certainly can play a part in choosing who those leaders will be. But, as usually comes out when we have this sort of discussion, we can play a part in bringing justice and peace to those who may be all around us every day.
Since we’re reading John Pavlovitz for our daily meditation this year, and I’m also reading one of his books, you can expect to hear a lot from him through these weeks.
There is one piece, in Hope and Other Superpowers, that really struck me when I first read it, and I have been re-reading it almost every day since, just to remind myself of it. In this part of his book he is speaking about un-sung heroes – those who may not look at all heroic but who are facing severe challenges every day and yet they keep going.
He says, “...we are at any given moment surrounded by throngs of people who, despite what we know about their roads or their pasts or their intentions, are trying as hard as they can to figure it all out and to keep it together, with varying degrees of success or failure. You and I are living with, working alongside, driving past and waiting in line with hurting, scared, persistent, heroically courageous people who have seen and endured and survived nightmares we can’t imagine, and we should approach each of them with awe and reverence.”
Let me repeat that last part: “You and I are living with, working alongside, driving past and waiting in line with hurting, scared, persistent, heroically courageous people who have seen and endured and survived nightmares we can’t imagine, and we should approach each of them with awe and reverence.”
Even if we know someone’s traumas, unless we’ve faced the same situations ourselves, we still don’t know, and we still can’t fix them. What we can and must do is love them, and respect them, and allow them to be themselves, offering help if ever that is a workable option, and offering acceptance if help doesn’t help.
This, it seems to me, is at the heart of our centuries long search for both justice and peace. And this, I believe, is the peace we are offered this Sunday in Advent, because this peace lies at the heart of all peace, all justice.
As I read recently in a fb meme – “You will never look into the eyes of someone God does not love. Always be kind.” Maybe it truly is as simple as that. It worked for Jesus.
May you make peace and live in peace this Advent season and always.
RSS Feed