Skip to main content

Advent 2 2019

Ever since the prophecy of enmity between the serpent and the descendants of Adam, we have been looking for peace. Not just between the serpent and humans, but God and humans too. More so, the story of Cain gives us the prediction of enmity between humans themselves. Cain kills his brother and then God has to mark Cain so others wouldn’t kill him. The whole life-with-God-in-the-Garden idea pretty much spiraled out of control pretty quickly. 

Humankind finds itself at odds with God, the Devil, the animals, and each other. Even the earth has to be worked harder to give up her bounty. Perhaps more surprising is that even between religions, Christian denominations, and within congregations, there is often a severe lack of peace. Not much peace to be found it seems. God has tried to woo us back and in so doing re-set the entire creation, but with every offer and promise of God, we manage to eventually reject it, insisting that we know better, that we need to look out for Number 1, and generally not trusting that God can make happen what we need him to make happen. We end up being faithless. 

And God tries again.

Here is a beginning insight. God doesn’t offer just a cessation of hostilities, and reduction in enmity. He offers much more than that. In Israel and therefore within the bounds of Scripture generally, the word from which we get our “peace” is shalom. Shalom includes the sort of peace we often think about, but it encompasses much more. This word speaks to wellbeing, well-adjusted living with sufficient food, supportive neighbors, and a reduction in turmoil among and within families. 

The shalom God offers includes even more than this wellbeing among people and extends to the creation itself, the animals, and even an earth that produces freely. Shalom is what Adam and Eve had in the Garden with God. Peaceful wellbeing with God in a creation designed to be the Divinely provided dwelling of God with Man. 

Jesus’s mission in Luke 4 reads like this: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” The middle of Isaiah 11 goes on to say: “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”  

Shalom throughout the entire world and including the earth and its creation. This is the peace that God offers and which was incarnated in His Son. It is the shalom intended to be incarnated in us, for us, for our neighbor, and for the world. 

This Advent consider how you might become a focal point of God’s shalom for others.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

He Remembers We Are But Flesh

In Job, often considered the first book written in the Bible, we are introduced to the accuser. In the introduction to the book, it is the accuser who accuses Job of being righteous and faithful to God only because of the blessings that God has given Job. We find the accuser again in Zechariah 3. The High Priest Joshua is standing in front of the Lord in filthy clothes, and the accuser is making accusations. The Lord rebukes the accuser and then says that he will cleanse Joshua.  Then in the New Testament, we see the appearance of the Advocate. The Spirit, we are told, is sent to walk beside us, to be a witness, to be an advocate for us. The accuser challenges us, questions our faithfulness, and questions our integrity as people who are supposed to follow God as His people, His disciples. This is an entre for being blamed and shamed. But God comes alongside us and advocates for us. We are told too that Jesus is our mediator with God. Jesus defends us and explains us to God so that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elders redux

A reader (I am always amazed that people actually read this blog) submitted a rather long comment on the original post on Elders. It is apparent that the reader did some good homework as the comment has several, well, more than several, reference citations. It is clear that they both read the original post and did some Bible study before posting their comment. Because the comment was so long, I thought it appropriate to post another entry rather than bury the response in the comment log. In the following discussion, I have included the text of the comment without the Scripture references. If you want to read the comment in its entirety, scroll to the Elders post and click on the comment. --------------------------------------------------------- [Comment~~~~The church is expected to be a people in exactly this sense. We are the people of God who are charged with continuing and preserving the values, culture, hopes, and the identity of God’s people in our time.~~~~ Does this include th...
7 comments
Read more

Passover, The First Born, Abraham, and You

Israel has been in captivity in Egypt, Moses has completed his contests with Pharaoh, and the People of Israel have been expelled from Egypt. The death of Egyptian firstborn children and livestock has compelled their removal into the wilderness. At the end of Exodus 12, God institutes the Passover in remembrance of the Angel of Death passing by the homes of Jews on the night the Egyptian firstborn children were killed. Notably, they were spared if in a house with blood around the door.  The Passover is established for Israel herself, including their slaves who have been circumcised. If a sojourner wants to celebrate the Passover with you, he can after he circumcises all males with him. I suspect that pretty much eliminated any visitors participating. In chapter 13, the protocols include redeeming Israel's firstborn. In this discussion, God says your firstborn belongs to God, and you must redeem your firstborn or you must kill it. God has redeemed Israel's firstborn by the blood...
Post a Comment
Read more