Tuesday of the First Week of Advent
Today I heard on the radio about a service that will send you a compliment by email or text message if you are having a bad day. On the one hand, this seems like a good idea to me. It is often easy to get discouraged by life and to crave a friendly message from another person. There are times when I wish someone would give me a compliment. On the other hand, I suspect that this is only a superficial response to a deeper issue. It seems to me that one reason why people feel the need for a compliment service is that there is so much bad news going around. The news seems always to be full of problems. It is easy to dwell on what is going wrong, because there is indeed so much injustice in the world today. It is in keeping with our need to experience encouragement at a crucial time that the scriptures today point us to the revelation of Jesus. By focusing on these scriptures we can find the deep encouragement we need to get through this season of the year.
As we begin the advent season, we Christians look forward not just to our celebration of Jesus’ birth at Christmas but also to the way that this feast looks forward to Jesus’ second coming at the end of time. In the first reading, Isaiah speaks prophetically about how the Spirit of God will come to rest upon Jesus. Isaiah describes how Jesus will become a wise and just judge who judges those who practice injustice. But the reading does not end there. It ends with a magnificent description of the kinds of reconciliation that are possible under Jesus’ rule. All warfare will cease, and bitter enemies will live in peace. The wolf and the lamb will no longer be enemies. In this new regime it is the child and not the warrior who will lead.
The gospel reading continues some of the same themes from the Isaiah passage. Jesus tells his disciples that he will be given power by God to rule over everything. He also tells them that they are witnesses to a great thing that the prophets and kings desired to see and hear but never got to experience for themselves – namely the fulfillment of the prophecies in Jesus. Although Jesus speaks these words to the disciples who are gathered around him at that time, we too are included in them, for we too have the opportunity to see and hear the things that Jesus is speaking of. Through our Christian life we have begun to glimpse the beginning of Jesus’ rule and the triumph of justice over injustice and hope over despair that Jesus brings about.
Some questions on which I find myself reflecting in the light of today’s scriptures are these: How should I respond here and now to the words of Isaiah and Jesus? What does it mean for Jesus to bring justice and peace to my life and the lives of those around me? As Christians, how can our homes be places of justice and peace? What can we do to share Jesus’ message of justice and peace with others? What can we do in response to situations that are not just and where peace seems far away? These questions lead me to pray for a deeper understanding of what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus in the expectation of his just rule.
Joel Schickel