Advent 2020
How the human soul yearns for intimate communion with God! How deeply we desire to be satisfied with the mutual sharing of divine love that comprises the essence of God’s character and intention for us. We taste the sweet fruit of this intersection of heaven and earth (the “Mandorla”) in moments and degrees, yet we want more.
Advent is all about the “more.”
While we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this week, let's also look at the larger context. As you know, Advent is marked on the four Sundays preceding Christmas as a way of placing intentional awareness upon our longing for the coming of God…and our expectation of God’s arrival in the birth of Jesus. Traditionally, these four Sundays focus upon four separate themes: Hope, Love, Joy, and Peace (see my Advent writing from last year); this year, however, I’d like to take a deeper dive into the single pervasive theme of Peace.
We have been uniquely rocked this year by the absence of peace in the world around us, and I for one am craving an encounter with the Prince of Peace in this Christmas season. More than an encounter, actually—an impartation that permeates my soul with living water so I can incarnate God’s peace to not only satisfy my own need but overflow to the great need around us. Would you join me in this quest?
James reminds us to…
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom [and I think we can include Peace in this offer], you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (1:2-5)
What a promise! What hope God offers us, even in troubled times. Even when we can’t gather with friends and family in the ways we desire, Jesus offers us Himself. In his presence we can acknowledge our longings and our disappointments, we can dismiss the counterfeit comforts of hollow materialism and mindless entertainment, and we can nourish our souls with all the Peace we can hold!
Week one: peace as presence
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isa. 9:6)
God knew that Peace would be the great human cry…and that on earth it would be in short supply. If Love is the quest of the heart, Peace is the great quest of the mind. And throughout human history, there has been plenty to trouble the mind. 2020 has certainly been no exception, yes?
What is your specific cry for Peace as we enter Advent? Would it be vocational? Financial? Relational? Political?
My biggest COVID suffering—if you can call it that—has been the social distance. The lack of hugs and handshakes. The facelessness of masks (necessary, of course). The loss of human connection within the church. The rarity of face-to-face fellowship. At moments, the separation has felt suffocating, anxious, isolating. I feel desperate for that particular Peace to return.
I wonder how the Peace Vacuum felt in first century Israel. Centuries and even millennia of waiting for the Messiah! The only point of identification I can find might be our waiting for the Second Coming. That mystical phantom of hope we carry…yet don’t have any reason to expect to see in our lifetime. Maybe it was like that. And yet… it happened. Messiah actually came! Human history turned on a dime on one silent night, outside the notice of all but a few. Peace entered ever so quietly into the human condition to incarnate the very essence of our soul’s yearning.
Jesus was touchable Peace, visible Peace, tangible Peace. Can you touch that Peace right now? In your next breath, can you feel the presence of Peace? Can you feel the favor of Peace? God With Us! Accessible. Knowable.
Advent is always timely because our hearts never stop aching to feel the Peace. No matter how good life is in any given instant, the ache remains. By design. This is our invitation to intimacy. So as we step into the next four weeks of anticipation, let’s pay attention together for all the priceless moments where Peace resides. Where Presence presents itself as unobtrusively yet undeniably as the Christ-Child.
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world (Jn. 16:33).
Reflection Questions
What gets in the way of connecting your visceral need for peace...with the actual presence of Peace?
What conscious act might nudge aside that impediment and bring you right now into the very arms of Peace?
What might you do to incarnate Peace and transmit peace in some aspect of your world right now?
Download an advent liturgy
Week Two: Peace as Communal
And you, my child, will be called…to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.” (Luke 1:76,79)
The question our family discussed last Sunday was this: What expression of Peace do you ache for today? And one of the insights that arose was how instinctively we privatize our spirituality. Both sin and salvation are almost completely individualized in our evangelical tradition, and the American mindset only amplifies this tendency: It’s not wrong, it’s just incomplete. Do our hearts long for personal peace? Indeed they do! Does God long for us to experience personal peace? With all God’s heart! But we’ll never understand the expansiveness of Peace if we stop there.
If there is one thing we have learned from COVID, it is the universality of our need and our suffering. As we lift our eyes to the Incarnation and its salve for the human condition, we must be mindful that every biblical announcement of salvation was communal, not individual. Our personal redemption is inextricably linked to the redemption of the world.
Not only is God interested in expanding our peace paradigm, but God set it up that our personal peace is often experienced through the healing grace of the community. For myself this past week, I found that consolation in a phone call with my brother-in-law…then later a call with a college friend. We’re not getting as much face-to-face consolation these days, but I got to touch its communal aspect in Sunday’s Advent service.
Love, connection, forgiveness, unity, understanding, comfort—these aspects of Peace are almost exclusively experienced in community. They come from God…but are generally delivered via the Body of Christ. Sometimes even from total strangers.
The flash of a spontaneous smile, the offering of a place in line, a serendipitous phone call, a proffered last brownie, a lingering glance. Peace is meant to bridge one soul to another…and then unite us within the One Divine Soul. This second Sunday of Advent, let your peace flow outward to nurture those around you, even while you draw in the very peace from others that your soul most craves.
Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you. (Isa. 54:10)
Reflection Questions
What helps you expand your desire for personal peace to something more communal, or even global?
How are you experiencing peace through the presence of others in your life?
Who needs some peace through your presence this week?
Download this week’s advent liturgy
Week Three: Peace as Devotion
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!” (Isa. 52:7)
If you use Advent candles in this season, there are typically three purple and one rose colored. Traditionally, the rose candle is lit in the third week to symbolize the quality of Love embedded in the Incarnation. So in today's reflection I'd like to explore the connection between Peace and Love.
The gospel narrative is not only "the greatest story ever told," it is a cosmic love story, following the classic plot line of love imagined, love lost, and love reclaimed. In many cycles. Often such stories lead desperate lovers to extraordinary acts across extraordinary risks to pursue the object of their passion...and never was that more true than Christ's entry into humanity. We can never understand Advent outside of "For God so loved the world...." The yearning for God that we carry and celebrate each year at Christmas is but the mirror reflection of God's own yearning for us.
I define love as an enduring devotion to another's good. God is nothing if not devoted to us! Every record of biblical history as well as our own personal history declares loudly that God has been the pursuer, the provider, the sustainer, and the lover of our souls. "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him" (1 Jn. 4:9). Only such a magnificent and persevering Love could draw our hearts and our world toward Peace.
Reflection Questions
How are you experiencing God's enduring devotion to you personally right now?
Where do you see God's devotion within a world so rent and fractured?
How could this Christmas reconnect your heart with God's love more powerfully?
Week Four: Peace is Here!
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Lk 2:13-14)
As we saw in our previous conversation about the Mandorla, we live in two realities at the same time. One foot in each different but overlapping world, so to speak. In terms of Advent, Christ has already come...but we're still looking for more of his coming. We live in the earth realm...but we also live in the Kingdom realm. We experience peace in moments and degrees...yet we're waiting for a whole new dimension of peace.
But think about this for a minute: When the angels announced peace to the shepherds, it wasn't a future state they were promising; it was a current reality. Peace had come. It is here now! When we look at the world around us, it's hard to recognize what we see as peace. Certainly not the degree of peace we long for...or will see ultimately. But here's what we do have: We have peace with God.
While some people are at war with God, God is not at war with us. The "God of peace" sent the "Prince of Peace" to establish "peace with God" (Rom 15:33, Isa 9:6, Rom 5:1). This is God's heart toward all God's children. This is a now-truth, and it is the heart of Advent. I hope you can receive that felt experience of God's heart of peace toward you right this moment.
"Now that we have God’s approval by faith, we have peace with God because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done!" (Rom 5:1).
Reflection Question
What activity helps you feel God's peace most?