Advent Peace – My Grown-Up Christmas List
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Isaiah 43:18-19 Luke 1:68-79
Focus: God anoints us for ordinary acts of compassion and neighborliness, which actively engage us in building peace/shalom.
A New Thing
He “was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6). This is very unusual clothing, and he ate like a man of the desert. Not only this, but he quoted the prophet Isaiah (words not unlike what we just read). You and I know him as “John the Baptist.” And people flooded out to the desert to listen to him preach. Why? Why were people so excited about him?
Hundreds of years earlier… there had been prophecies that a man named Elijah – a great prophet – would return from heaven one day. Elijah was a man of the desert, as an unusual character dressed in camel’s hair. When Elijah returned, it meant God would be establishing God’s reign on earth! That’s the “New Thing” we just read about! It is greater than the exodus of Israel out of slavery in Egypt…greater than God parting the Red Sea…. or giving manna from heaven!
When the people saw John the Baptist, they would have made the connection. THIS is that day! John is Elijah. No wonder they rushed to the desert to hear him!
If we take a moment to look through the eyes of those Jewish people in the first century…There stands John the Baptist - in our lives…on this second Sunday of Advent. What is John saying to us as we wait for Christmas? God is coming among us. It is God’s reign that is at hand. Yes, that’s a cause for joy! That’s worth all the carols, and lights, and decorations, and celebrations we can muster! But, John is also calling for repentance. As John preached:
“Repent, the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!”
We give lots of attention to the joy. But we need to hear the message of repentance too.
My Grown-Up Christmas List
Even our culture understands that Christmas points to much more than warm family gatherings with toys and treats under a Christmas tree. Do you remember the song a few years ago called, My Grown-Up Christmas List”? I can’t sing it, but listen to the words of the refrain:
“No more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
And everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end,
This is my grown-up Christmas list.”
For a secular song, this isn’t bad. It sounds a little idealistic, maybe like a Hallmark card. But this is a bit like a vision of that “New Thing” of God’s reign on earth! How can this come true?
John fired people up to be part of the NEW THING God is doing – not with a pretty song. John says YOU can participate in this NEW THING, but it involves turning away from other wish lists (repent)!
Advent Preparations
Repentance is literally that, turning away-from our other wish lists, from what is wrong, and turning-toward God. It’s more than just NOT doing something bad. It is the act of turning toward God’s will. It’s learning to desire and prioritize God’s “Grown-UP Christmas List,” if you will.
In the midst of all the selfishness, pain, and violence in this world, you and I are called by John to turn toward goals like this:
One Day Jesus will bring a peace and full-life right here where we live:
where there will be no more infants who live only a few days, and no more people who die too young, or old people who live too feebly...
God will bring about a new world where no one will be without a home
Where those who plant fields will survive to harvest and enjoy their produce.
No more people will be taxed out of their homes
No more war
And no neighbors treated like criminals because the color of their skin or languages they speak.
Advent is a time when we prepare for the breaking in of this reign of God, through the leadership of the Prince of Peace.
I’m going to call this breaking in, “Peacemaking”, because peace is more than a lack of arguments, fighting, or war. Peace in a Biblical sense, refers to the Hebrew word for peace, SHALOM. SHALOM means restoring well-being, bringing wholeness, and resolving conflicts that destroy life.
The reign of God is breaking into this world through people who turn away from selfishness and follow Jesus in doing a million Ordinary acts of mercy, compassion, and prayer.
Ordinary Acts of Mercy, Compassion, and Prayer
Dorothy Day: Dorothy Day used to say that feeding soup to the poor is the work of peace. But peace requires the everyday virtue of courage in a world constituted by cowardice and self-interest. Peacemaking takes the work of a whole people, not just one heroic individual. Dorothy Day depended on Peter Maurin, and the two of them on a movement, on a community.
Leymah Gbowee: In the early 2000s, Liberia was torn apart by civil war. Violence had become normal. Even children were armed. Women were violated. Cities were in ruins. And in the middle of it all, a woman named Leymah Gbowee had had enough. She was a simple social worker, a mom, a wife. She began gathering women—Christians and Muslims alike—to pray. In marketplaces. In churches. In mosques. They wore white T-Shirts as a symbol of peace. They held silent protests over and over. They organized sit-ins. And they kept praying.
When peace negotiations stalled, these women physically blocked the doors of the hotel where the talks were taking place. They locked arms and refused to let the leaders leave until they reached a deal.
And it worked. In 2003, the war ended. Liberia began the long road to healing. Gbowee later won the Nobel Peace Prize—not because she held power, but because she refused to be silent.
Peacemaking, in her case, wasn’t passive. It was fierce. It was prayerful. It was unified. And it changed a nation. Jesus said, blessed are the peacemakers.
”Gbowee didn’t carry a weapon. She carried a burden—and brought peace where war had ruled.
Here in Minneapolis: This past Wednesday, in Minneapolis a man from Eastern Africa was approached by ICE agents in his front yard. The ICE officers demanded his identification, and promptly put him in hand cuffs while holding guns and cans of pepper spray. They were still roughing him up in his yard when neighbors began to gather. People started blowing whistles. Before long 30 neighbors were there, blowing whistles, recording the events on their phones, and spontaneously chanting “Leave our neighbors alone. Leave our neighbors alone.” After about 10 minutes of this, the ICE agents let go of the man and walked back to their van and drove away. Neighbors standing up for neighbors in solidarity, and demanding peace. It works. It is an ordinary act of peace-building.
Bill – Three times a week we know that Bill goes to Panera Bread to collect their extra bread. Three times a week he carries them to the food shelf, or here at church, and even stops to give an occasional person beside his vehicle some daily bread.
God is stirring every one of us to make ordinary acts of mercy, compassion, and love.
Your Grown-Up Christmas List
Isaiah told us that God is doing a new thing! And God continues to do new things. What new thing is on your Christmas list this year? How are we called to help it spring forth? Are you feeling called to repent from something? Are you feeling called to add something to our 'Christmas shopping list' so to speak? Advent is a time to open ourselves to that stirring…to re-orient our whole being towards the healing presence of Jesus.
As we move through Advent, may we orient ourselves towards the creative, beautiful and complete Shalom of God. And as we do, may it flow, in abundance, towards the world around us. Amen.
Pastor Doug Cox