Each year when Christmas comes, I have a feeling that I just haven’t savored Advent enough. I feel unprepared, as though the celebration snuck up on me. I spend December sipping peppermint mochas, gift shopping, and putting up a few decorations, but I still wonder where the time went; I feel like I missed something.
But Christians like myself believe that the prophets started preparing us for our Savior’s birth over 2700 years ago. Perhaps by committing to the spiritual discipline of reflecting on a lectionary text each week, I may find myself more prepared for Jesus’ birth. Perhaps by coming along with me, you will, too.
Specifically, I want to focus on the texts from Isaiah that the Revised Common Lectionary provides for each Sunday in Advent and for Christmas as well. Even the most Old Testament–phobic Christian—and I’ll admit, I’ve been that Christian—will recognize some comforting phrases from these texts.
As a disclaimer, I’d like to note that these posts are written from my own perspective, which is a Christian and spiritual one. I believe that Isaiah and other prophets foretell the coming of a messiah, that Jesus is that messiah, and that many of the most beautiful images in these texts represent God’s New Creation after Jesus’ second coming.
As scholars will point out, that may not be what the historical person Isaiah was picturing. Biblical prophets are often illustrating alternatives to the people of their own time: what the world might look like if they do or don’t get their act together and follow God’s commands. But we know that human societies and individuals rarely do get their act together—at least, not without help. Christianity claims that through Jesus we are reconciled to God, and as the fulfillment of that reconciliation, God’s Kingdom will come.
Such a perspective does not seek to undermine or compete with the various and rich interpretations of secular scholars, or, indeed, generations of Jewish scholars. Scripture is a treasure-trove of meaning; it holds more than enough jewels for us all.
With all of this said, I hope you’ll join me in revisiting the ancient promises of Isaiah and contemplating how we can participate in them today, as well as what we can hope for tomorrow.
The First Sunday of Advent: Isaiah 2:1-5
Scripture tells us that the people known as the Hebrews, the Israelites, and/or the Jews are chosen by God. From ancient times, they have preserved holy scripture and testified to the ultimate truth: that there exists a God who is powerful, creative, loving, and just, and who instructs us in the ways of righteousness.
For Christians, one of the greatest miracles of Jesus is that through him, gentiles are included in God’s covenant. Paul describes non-Jewish believers as wild branches grafted onto a cultivated olive tree (Romans 11:17-24). Yet, the idea that people “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Revelation 7:9) would one day worship the God of Israel emerges long before Jesus’ birth.[1]
This dream that humanity’s wholeness will be restored is clear in this week’s reading from Isaiah:
“In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains…all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord…that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths’” (2:2-3).
Isaiah prophesies that not just the people of Israel and Judah—who, at the time this passage was likely written, were under threat from the powerful Assyrian empire—but also the nations, even the ones threatening God’s people, will gather to worship and learn from God. They will seek to conform themselves not to the ways of war, but the ways of righteousness.
The threat of war is clearly on Isaiah’s mind. Indeed, the Northern Kingdom of Israel will fall to Assyria; the Kingdom of Judah will be weakened Assyria, and later will fall to Babylon. There will be unspeakable violence, not to mention the trauma of exile. But this scripture tells us that someday, in the Lord’s day, there will be peace:
“…they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more” (2:4).
Those who previously conquered God’s people will someday find unity with them in a restored world; violence will become unimaginable.
As with so much of Advent, the promise we read here is only partly fulfilled. From a Christian perspective, God has indeed grafted gentiles onto the tree of the covenant. One’s birth does not determine one’s belonging in the house of God.
And yet, the world we see around us is a far cry from peaceful paradise. The nations continue to lift up ever more powerful weapons against one another. Even though our ploughs and pruning hooks cultivate enough food for all God’s children, hundreds of millions go hungry.
To the powerful, this prophecy says, take action! Become an example of mercy and righteousness. Do not use religion as an excuse for violence. Your goal should not be to conquer, but to share.
To the powerless, this prophecy says, take heart! God sees your pain, and it will not last forever. You have reason to hope for peace, unity, and prosperity: these things are promised to you.
I suspect that most of us find ourselves powerful in some ways, powerless in others. Each of us is called “to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8); each of us has opportunities to promote the wellbeing of others.
At the same time, we are all hurt—albeit to varying degrees—by the injustice around us. Even a high-income country like the United States, many live in fear of violence, suffer from preventable illnesses, and struggle to make ends meet. Meanwhile, our hearts ache at the images of war and poverty that stream to our phones from around the world each day.
May we find ourselves both motivated and comforted by these words from Isaiah. Let us celebrate the privilege of joining with people from every nation in the worship of God. And may the hope of the world to come empower us to “seek the welfare [shalom] of the city” where God has sent us (Jeremiah 29:7).
[1] For another of many examples, see Psalm 22:27: “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him…”
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