It’s the first day of the first week after
the first Sunday of the Advent season. I
fully understand that this should be about hope, and here I am thinking about
peace. Stay with me…
In
the book, Illuminate, An Advent Experience, this is what I read, this morning: “Hope is an odd thing to understand. We typically think of hope as a good
thing. Yet hope is rarely found in
places where good things happen regularly.
Rather, hope is found in places where bad things happen, such as when we
experience hurt and loss. So if you meet
people who are hopeful, they can usually tell you stories of pain or suffering”
(Sheneman, 16).
The Psalmist implores:
“How
long, Lord… may your mercy come quickly to meet us, for we are in desperate need. Help us, God our Savior, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for your
name’s sake” (Psalm 79:5, 8-9, NIV).
We’ve been watching and waiting for 24
hours, and we’re already desperate. It’s
interesting that the next words we read in this text include an inquiry about
how God might destroy our enemies in order to bring peace to us in the way we
expect and desire peace to come. Does
this even make sense? The prophet Micah
says no:
“Nation
will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one
will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken. All the nations may
walk in the name of their gods, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for
ever and ever” (Micah 4:3-5, NIV).
We don’t have to fight. No one has to be destroyed. It seems that there might be enough space for
all of humanity, if we would just go out and find our own tree… Hope and peace, intricately tied together,
are not about conquering our enemies but rather about making room for
them.
In all of this, I have been thinking about
what it is to actually suffer, as well.
I have been thinking about what it is to be in a place where hope is
found precisely because the suffering
is so great. And I’m not sure we (you… I…
whoever) grasp what this really means. If we’re coming at it from any kind of privilege;
I’m not sure we can. That is not to dismiss any real suffering and
tragedy that happens in our lives, but we have to make a distinction between
pain and offense. If, at any point, our
response is, “I’m offended, so I am suffering;” we’ve got it wrong. And there is no time during the church year
that I see offense more prominently than during Advent.
I recently ran across a quote that went
something like this: “Rather than putting Christ back in Christmas, I would settle for putting Christ back in Christian.”
Oh…
And so I’m pondering what that means,
today, as I think about ways in which I might usher in hope and peace to people
who are hurting in tangible ways that extend far beyond sterilized offenses
that only affect values that should be changed, anyway.
L.
