ADVENT PEACE Isaiah 40:1-11 (12-07- 14) Advent 2, Communion It has been traditionally understood that the book of Isaiah in our Bible has at least 2 major divisions, some would argue 3. The 40 th chapter has been seen as the dividing point between what is called first Isaiah and second Isaiah. There is a substantial change in the trajectory of the prophetic witness between the end of chapter 39 and the beginning of chapter 40. For the first 39 chapters the witness of the prophet has been to call God s people to account for their idolatry and for their placing of trust in that which is not the Lord. God s people have called evil good and good evil, they have put darkness for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. They have been wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight they have rejected the instruction of the Lord of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel. For their stubbornness and insolence they have known defeat, conquest and have been taken into exile, where, by the waters of Babylon, there they sat down and wept when they remembered Zion. But the 40 th chapter begins with a very different tone. Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord s hand double for all her sins. The shift in tone is not in response to a shift in God s people. The promise of comfort originates in God. God s people are in exile.
2 God s people are suffering. God s people are in disarray. And God has decided that God will do something about it. God will bring God s comfort to God s people. God tells the prophet to speak tenderly to Jerusalem, to comfort the people, to tell them that their suffering will come to an end, that they will know more than they ever lost. What God is saying essentially is that God will bring God s peace to God s people and indeed to all God s creation. We could use a little peace in our world right now, couldn t we? Conflict seems to colour so much of what fills our news cycles. The wars around the world continue seemingly unabated by any effort to bring them to a conclusion. In the U.S. racial tensions have hit a low not seen in many years, threatening to unravel whatever progress might have been made with the election of an African American president. Here at home, in our province, this past week has been a tumultuous one with our provincial government tied up in knots around gay- straight alliances for students. Conflict, disarray, the suffering of people, we know it all too well. Peace is the theme for the second Sunday of Advent. But Advent peace isn't about an absence of conflict. Advent peace isn't only about the absence of war or the end to racial tensions or a solution to issues of sexual identity that doesn t end up tearing people apart. Yes, its about those things, but Advent peace is about much more than that. Advent peace is about God s comfort, the promise of God to bring about a change in the disarray that exists between God and God s creation. Advent peace is the promise that God is at work in the world,
3 to bring the world and all of creation, to the state of comfort that God imagined in the beginning. In scripture the wilderness, the desert, has stood for a place where God seems absent, where suffering seems to be the order of the day. God s people wandered in the wilderness for 40 years because they couldn t trust God to deliver them to the promised land. Elijah the prophet walked into the wilderness prepared to ask God to take his life because he could no longer stand being persecuted by Ahab and Jezebel. Jesus, immediately after his baptism, was whisked into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. But we know that even in the wilderness, in the desert, God is not absent. And Isaiah tells us that from the midst of the wilderness, from the heart of the desert, a voice cries out, prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all people shall see it together the Lord God comes with might and God s arm rules for him, God s reward is with him, and God s recompense before him. God will feed God s flock like a shepherd, God will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom, and gently lead the mother sheep. God will bring God s peace. Advent is a season of careful preparation, both for the celebration of the birth of Christ and also for the return of Christ. But for neither can we be truly prepared if we don t confront that which breaks the peace with God that God intends the sin of the world and the sin of our lives.
4 The comfort that God proclaims to God s people assumes a prior state of discomfort. The promise of God s peace is made to a people who are in disarray when it comes to peace with God. If we want to truly prepare to receive God s Advent peace, we have to come to terms with our discomfort, with our disarray. There s a word for that, repentance. Skip ahead from Isaiah several hundred years and you get John the baptizer, the cousin of Jesus, in the wilderness of Judea, echoing the words of Isaiah, prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. John appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. How do we prepare for God s Advent peace? We don t prepare by somehow doing something that makes peace with God possible, no, that s already been done by God through Jesus Christ. We prepare for God s Advent peace by accepting the promised comfort of God by repenting of that which continues to propagate our disarray or discomfort with God. We repent by turning from our sin and turning to the who alone is our salvation and our righteousness. Its not a real Christmassy message, but it is an Advent one. The careful preparation to celebrate God s gift of love, of peace, is to be honest with ourselves, with our sin and human weakness and act to live in a different way. Unless we are willing to be brutally honest with ourselves and our sin, unless we are prepared to truly repent of our weakness and our disarray, how will we be ready to receive Jesus, either at Christmas or when he returns? Unless we confess that we are like grass, easy to wither and fade, and unless we place our trust and hope on the Word of God, which stands forever, how can we be prepared for God s peace, God s gift of love and reconciliation?
5 I find it revealing that when the way of the Lord is prepared in the wilderness, there are physical changes that take place. Valleys are lifted up, mountains are made low, uneven becomes even and rough places become plains. I know that they are images, but the fact remains that when God s peace and comfort are present, things look different from what they have been. When we prepare the way of the Lord in our lives, when we repent of what keeps us from God s comfort and peace, things must look different for us as well. Repentance isn't an inner transformation alone, it must be made manifest in an outward living. As the saying goes, we don t think ourselves into a new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking. Repentance comes as we change the shape of our character, the discipline of our choices, the commitment of our resources. God s Advent peace is there for the taking, but it requires preparation to take root. We don t prepare for the comfort of God s peace by empty pursuits of seasonal expectations. We prepare by changing the capacity of our lives for transformation, by intentionally creating the space necessary so that the gift of God s love can be received more fully. Peace is God s making, but we are called to accept it by our response, not as a condition for God s peace, but in response to it. The letter of 2 Peter, writing to Christian communities waiting for the coming of the day of God, encourages the faithful to lead lives of holiness and godliness, to strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish, and to regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.
6 This morning we are invited to receive God s peace through God s son Jesus Christ, our Lord. We are invited to the Table of our Lord, to receive the bread and the cup, to know that God s comfort and peace are given to us through the love of Jesus, his life, his death, his resurrection and the promise of his return. We are invited so that we may prepare carefully, hopefully, faithfully, for the gift of Christ and to be nourished to be Christ s faithful people, until he comes again. Thanks be to God, Amen.