Fifth Advent: God’s Wild Pursuit

Who doesn’t light up at the sparkly-eyed expectation and thrill of children on Christmas Eve?! I remember lying awake all night as a child, the relief of sleep coming only in short and shallow doses before excitement woke me up again. It was the longest night of the year!     

For children, Christmas is a time to dream. It's a time to linger over wish lists and make one's greatest desires known, not just to moms and dads, but to the universe. Christmas speaks to them of the possibility of the things they long for but are beyond their grasp, of hopes and dreams coming true, of the impossible becoming possible. 

The Fourth Advent: Peace on Earth

The fourth candle of advent turns our focus to the peace that was proclaimed hundreds of years before Christ’s birth by Isaiah, and then again on the night of his birth by a chorus of other-worldly beings that emerged from the heavens. Their announcement was made to a company of humble shepherds keeping watch over their flocks of sheep in the hills near Bethlehem. 

It’s hard to imagine what such a proclamation would have meant to the ancient Israelites, but we can we envision “peace on earth” today? We are constantly made aware of volatile situations around the world that have the potential to erupt at any time; there are desperate people fleeing the poverty and violence of their homelands; families are hunkering down in refugee camps, and moms and dads are clutching their children tightly in war-torn and bombed out cities. Seeing the images in the news and watching videos of raw footage online can make the idea of peace seem far-fetched, even ludicrous.

But before peace can come between men to create good will towards each other and a peaceful world for people to live in, peace must live inside of man.