Second Sunday of Advent 2007

We live in a violent world. It’s hard to ignore the daily news of man’s inhumanity to man that seems rooted in every culture, every neighborhood, every city and every nook and cranny. Where there is a way evil will raise its ugly head and somebody, many times the innocent, will suffer the consequences. There is no safe place anymore, but there ought to be.

The one safe place ought to be in the community of those who have come within the embrace of God. The Church is that people who have come to God’s holy mountain in order to be shaped and formed by His life. Therefore, the Church is that people who are led by God’s Messiah, and they are led in paths of peace. People of God’s Church live and move and have their being in Jesus, and in Jesus the remarkable and unfathomable occurs.

To illustrate just how remarkable and unfathomable the prophet Isaiah turned to story and imagery. He speaks utter nonsense when he speaks of the wolf and the lamb dwelling together and of the leopard and young goat lying down together and of the calf and young lion being together and the cow and the bear grazing together (Isaiah 11:6-7). What Isaiah is saying is that the incompatible are at peace with one another.

The Church must be that place where the incompatible find a home. It must be that place where swords are hammered into plowshares and where spears are hammered into pruning hooks (Is. 2:4). It must be that place and that people where war is studied no more and where peace reigns. It must be that place where nations and peoples no longer lift up swords against each other.

Impossible? Sure sounds like it. Yet, in Christ all things are possible. So, we proclaim God’s “little boy” (Is. 11:6). We bow our lives to Him and we submit to His Lordship, and those who have really done these things stand amazed at what God can do.