Isaiah 2:1-5, Psalm 122 Communion Meditation: Visions of
Peace
We have come to
the first Sunday of Advent.
This Sunday
begins a new church year, where for the next 52 weeks
we will revisit the birth, life, death,
resurrection of Jesus.
And how do we
begin this season of Advent, this first Sunday of the church year? Waiting. Preparing. Advent is a Season of waiting for the Lord’s
coming.
Many of us think
of the season of Advent as simply the season
of waiting for Baby Jesus on Christmas.
But Advent
waiting goes much deeper than waiting for Baby Jesus.
We also are
waiting for his day-by-day, hour-by-hour coming into our lives,
and we are waiting for his second coming at the end of time, when once and for all, God’s peace
will be on earth as it is in heaven.
Each Sunday of Advent, we
light a candle and with each candle we light,
we dream visions.
Big, beautiful visions.
This first Sunday, we lit the
candle of Peace.
The second Sunday, we will
light the candle of Hope.
The third Sunday, the rose
colored candle is the Candle of Joy.
The fourth Sunday, we light
the candle of Love.
The center candle, the Christ
Candle, will be lit on Christmas Eve,
reminding us of the biggest most beautiful vision of all -
that Christ is the light of the world that shines in the
darkness.
The Hebrew word for peace is
shalom, and this word
has so much more meaning than the word peace.
At its very core, shalom
means to be whole, to be complete.
Peace is not just the absence
of war and conflict.
Peace is the presence of
healing and wholeness.
It is a restoration of the
divine plan that began when God created the world,
but which was broken by human sin.
We long for God’s shalom or
peace, yet at the same time
we must do our part to live into it.
There is the notion in the
word shalom that peace is not just a way of being - it’s an action.
Today’s reading from Isaiah
gives a vision for peace, for shalom, that is big and beautiful.
“They shall beat their
swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning
hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall
they learn war any more.”
We could just sit here a
minute and soak up this vision. Swords and spears into
gardening tools.
It’s a powerful vision, maybe
even more so because we know what the world is really like.
The
In Afghanistan NATO forces
continue to face resistance from Taliban insurgents.
In
When we look at the state of
the world, how can we say, “Peace, Peace when there is no peace?” as the
prophet Jeremiah wrote so long ago. (Jer 6:6,
Even if we narrow down and
look at our communities, our workplaces, our homes even, every one of us
sitting here could find some relationship that is broken. Some
place that is fractured. Some situation of unforgiveness.
Something that is less than
the wholeness, the shalom, the peace that God intends
for us.
The shalom, the peace that surpasses understanding, God’s vision
for wholeness, is not here yet.
But every so often, we see a
glimmer of shalom. We get a glimpse of
wholeness that helps heals our fragmented world. We see a vision for
peace.
Today as we begin the season
of Advent, and with the children contributing
to our worship as they have, it seems appropriate to
turn to children to help us see a vision of peace.
I have a marvelous little
book, written by children, called “A Million Visions of Peace,”
and I want to share a few of their visions with you. If
you listen closely, you will hear and see these visions of a big, beautiful
peace. And notice the action in these
visions.
There is God’s peace, but it
requires us to do our part to live into it.
One child says: “Peace begins in each person’s heart and then
is passed on to the people they love most.
Then they pass it on until everyone has peace in their heart.”
Another child wrote: “Peace is accepting one another for what we
are. Peace is learning. It also is listening
to what people have to say with an open mind.”
One child wrote: “My vision
for peace is that all the boys and girls in the world are my friends.”
Another child said this: “We
must stop the wars and the fights. We
need to learn to communicate by using words instead of weapons.”
Here is an idea from a
child: “Every year near Christmas have a cease-fire all over the world for one day. If for one day, why not for one year?”
Another child wrote this:
“World peace starts with one person. I
will start; will you help me continue?”
We might dismiss this all as
simply childish dreams.
But God has already shown us
the place of these little ones in his kingdom
when he sent his Son, the prince of peace, to be born as a
baby.
And so as we long for these
visions of peace and shalom,
we must also do our part to live into them.
One of the places we live
into these visions for peace is right here at the communion table where we come
together as one Body in Christ each Sunday.
Here at this table, we seek
unity and wholeness.
Here at this table we have a
vision for peace, for shalom.
This table is a reminder that
it’s God who can bring us to wholeness, to shalom,
to a peace that surpasses understanding.
It’s tempting during this
month of December to turn to our Christmas to-do list to fix the brokenness in
our lives: the shopping, the baking, the
entertaining, the errands, the decorating, and on and on. None of our Christmas frenzy brings
shalom.
None of these things will
make us whole.
I invite you to start the
Season of Advent this year with the peace
that only comes from God, a peace which can begin at this
table.
You are invited to experience
this peace at this table,
and then do your part to take God’s shalom into the world.