An Extraordinary Proclamation

Today we begin the season of Advent, a time of watching and waiting for the coming of God as a human person.  It is the time for commemorating God’s Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, born as we are into life on earth, to live, grow, love, suffer and die just as we all do.  During these next four weeks we look forward to this Incarnation of God.  We watch, wait and hurriedly prepare for Christ's birth with a sense of joyful anticipation.

The Prophet Isaiah calls us to be prepared for something great – something extraordinary.  Isaiah predicts that people will gather from nations far and wide for something revolutionary and exciting. “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” Peace, nonviolence, and justice will reign.

It is a surprising proclamation.  The world in the time of Isaiah and the world today is replete with divisions, secular and religious, social and economic, so that any possibility of peace and justice seems remote and unlikely.  God taking the form of a human being was and is an audacious and revolutionary claim.

Isaiah presented an ideal image of the days to come.  Days filled with hope and peace, kindness and justice, days that are indeed God's days.  Jerusalem, the city of God, is to be established not only as a mountain -- the home of a god and the place of revelation -- but as the highest mountain and therefore the home of the highest God.  All the nations are to be drawn to this mountain. They will come streaming like a river.  “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord.... Let us walk in the light of the Lord.“

 

The voice of the prophet rings out from the scroll of Isaiah with an image of light and heat for the work of the morning: "As when fire kindles brushwood and causes water to boil, make your name known, O Lord."  Darkness, heat and light, endings and beginnings, fear and hope, death and rebirth, are not only reflected in the sun, the moon and the stars.  They are the rhythms of life here and now.

These rhythms of life are meant to suggest a connection with all creation.  They imply that every day is a kind of Advent, wherein we are called to become vehicles for God's healing, redemptive grace.  The Canadian priest, Herbert O'Driscoll said, "Living in our time is to walk on the beach of history after a great tide has ebbed." He felt that we must look for the great time of God and search for the signs of that incoming tide.

In the early morning during this season of Advent take a walk in your mind’s eye along the beach in the hour before dawn; drink in the darkness and confront the cold light of the fading moon and stars.  And then see, rising in the east from the ocean's limit, the sun of a new day, great and red and warming, bringing light to a world whose hope for it was all but extinguished.

Advent prepares us for the coming of the light of the world.  The Christmas story with its guiding star and angels in the night sky is an evening myth that is filled with truth.  A Medieval preacher described Advent as the "dawn of grace because it brings to light the one on whom we fix our faith, at the beginning and in the end."

We can ponder the events of this time of the year and reflect upon the source of reconciliation between God and humanity.  The possibility for reconciliation is always present, and Isaiah's time-honored instruction transcends time and space. We can hope for justice right here in Rhode Island as we allocate funds for education, health care, and the welfare of the working poor and the unemployed citizens in our midst.  We are to be ever vigilant, watchful, and continue our forward look to the days to come.

May the God of this Advent season fill us with hope, joy and peace through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.