The Second Sunday in Advent
Isaiah 11:1-9; 40:1-5; 9-11
For more than a decade my mum and dad had irreconcilable differences. God only knows how we kids prayed and begged the heavens for God to do something, and how we all longed for their unity and peace. Their inability to be reconciled became a burden on their ten children. This was definitely not their intention when they stood before the altar of their wedding day almost fifty years ago.
Do you long for peace in your marriage? Do you long for peace and comfort in your family? Do you long for peace in yourself? Do you long for peace and better security in Syria and Iraq??
Of course we all do but how much do we long for it. What’s the intensity of that desire? As we enter the 2nd week of Advent, anticipating the birth of Jesus, hoping that this time, this year, this season, the vast promises of peace may be fulfilled. As always the Vision of Isaiah the Prophet comes to mind especially his metaphors which touch on that deep longing within us for peace in our hearts, our parents, family, tribal groups and in our world today.
“The lamb and the leopard shall lie down together. The suckling child shall play with wasps and not be stung and the weaned child, three or four years old, shall put his hand into a den of cobras and shall not be bitten by the snakes”, Isaiah 11:1-9
“Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low and fear not, here is your God” Isaiah 40: 1-5, 9-11
As I read this text I was touched by Isaiah’s vision of this peaceful world, this peaceful family where even the animals and human beings are kind to each other. We all love to live in this kind of world. But the reality is that Isaiah chapter eleven fills my eyes with tears and disappointment.
You and I know that this sort of peace is either not available to us or we are too dumb and cynical to open our eyes to see that it is possible if we work with God for it. Look at the terror stalking in Syria and Iraq by the ISIS. Let’s look to the Middle-East at the place of Jesus’ birth only to be confronted with the anger dividing peoples and nations into armed camps waiting for that spark of death.
In our real world, wolves eat lambs and bears devour goats. In our world, lions with two legs run after the poor helpless gazelle for lunch. In this ruthless and destructive world of competition, we say, “It’s a dog eat dog world”. In this world, some bank managers are paid $16 million per annum while others die in their doorsteps like Lazarus.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Muslims and Christians in Sudan would miraculously start to live together in peace? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were peace on earth where the rich and poor can eat from the same table of love? Wouldn’t it be nice if my parents could spend a whole week together as husband and wife and not have a fight? Or, if I couldn’t have these, wouldn’t it be nice to have peace at least a few days before or after Christmas?
Deep inside each of us we all long to have a greater sense of peace. Prophet Isaiah had the same longings. He, too, had this longing for peace like a man in the desert longs for water, like a starving man longs for bread. Isaiah knew that we were made in the image of God, and therefore it was not God’s intention for human beings to forever fight with each other. It was not God’s intentions for mothers and fathers, and husbands and wives, blacks and whites, Arabs and Israelis, Russians and Americans, Muslims and Christians, to be endlessly at war with each other.
On this 2nd Sunday of Advent Mathew’s Gospel invites us all to REPENT, FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS CLOSE AT HAND. Repentance here may simply be to get in touch with that inner longing for peace and justice in our hearts and know the Prince of Peace within who calls us to not only be dreamers but heralds of peace to all peoples.