Sunday, December 6, 2020

The lectionary passages for the Second Sunday of Advent are:

First Reading: Isaiah 40:1-11
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Second Reading: 2 Peter 3:8-15a
Gospel: Mark 1:1-8

The liturgical color for the day is: Purple or Blue.

There is no Rome oppressing us.  We have not been hauled off into exile.  So what’s the problem?  It’s deeper.  It is even deeper than a pandemic.  It is that deep feel that things are off, and something worse could come of this at any moment.  So, what do we do?  We let God do what God does—God steps into our lives with the possibility of peace. 

That very possibility—that is what is there in Second Isaiah in Chapter 40.  It was the possibility that something could really change.  It was the possibility that not from their doing, but from outside of their circumstances God could bring about a new day.

It was that same thing down by the riverside for John too.  As he stepped away from the oppressiveness of institution and culture and called people to baptism, John was giving way to the possibility that God was doing something…that it was happening.

It is still about that possibility—that possibility of peace.  And that very possibility of peace becomes incarnate.  Incarnate.  In Jesus Christ the Lord.

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He is the peace.  That even in the cross we see the triumph of resurrection.  That even in the violence of that death we witness the power of God to bring new life.  That is where the peace is—it is inside of us—it is the Spirit breathing into our bodies this incarnation of the body of Christ.

It is alive in us.  This peace is not about no fighting; it is about that gift that God ushers into our lives right here in the unrest this holy rest.  It that God comes right into the mess of our existence with this lasting peace—Jesus Christ the Lord.

His presence is peace.  His presence in us is the peace we need and we long for.  It is the liberation from our (Covid-19) exile and the deliverance from our oppressor (the malaise of this moment).  His presence—the presence of Christ—is our peace.  And he makes his way towards us.

“Comfort, comfort,” Isaiah says.  “Speak tenderly…see, your God comes.”  That is our task: to comfort, to speak, to see our God comes.

Christ.  He is peace.  (Not Christmas, but Christ.)  He is our peace.

Rev. Dr. Daris Bultena
General Presbyter and Stated Clerk