Reflections for the First Sunday of Advent

The following excerpt is from The Advent of the God of Peace: Reflections for Advent 2007, by Fr. John Dear, S.J. It is available from Pax Christi USA in both English and Spanish. This reflection is for the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 2007.)

First Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 2:1-4, Romans 13:11-14, Matthew 24:37-44

“They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. One nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” (Isaiah 2:4)

The peace of Advent, explained in Isaiah’s ancient oracle, advances by stages. At the outset, the nations stream up the mountain of God, and there congregate in the rarefied air, awaiting a word. The word comes forth, a sermon on the mount: the words of disarmament, justice, and peace. Enraptured, the throngs return to dismantle their weapons, share their goods, and live in peace with creation, all the while the song on their lips, “Let us walk in the light of the God of peace.”

This is the Advent journey in a nutshell.

The first stage starts us on a metaphorical ascent, a pilgrimage toward our spiritual destiny. Every nation, culture, race, and religion, each of us–we’re summoned to search diligently for God. Life is a journey to the mountaintop, where we will meet the Creator of the Universe. The journey requires discipline, determination, and effort–a task of the highest priority. We’re on our way to God.

In the second stage, the pinnacle reached at last, we gently encounter the God of the mountain. There on the mountaintop, we do not speak. We listen, and God speaks. We have entered the holy realm of prayer. In the prophet’s vision, prayer has little to do with frantic pleading, grumbling, incessant talking. Rather, to pray is to sit at the feet of God and attune our inner ear. We listen deliberately, consciously, attentively to what God might say.

And God, so we’re told, has a word for us, a word of some detail–this according to both Isaiah and Jesus. God solemnly intends that we disarm, practice nonviolence, and live in peace. God solemnly intends that the nations promulgate God’s ways–immediately. As we listen, we realize, to our delight and amazement, that God is a God of nonviolence; God does not approve of killing. God does not bless war, does not justify warfare; God views war as sinful. God does not brook retaliation; God regards nuclear weaponry as idolatry and demonic. The divine eye turns askance at our violence; God despises imperial domination. God aches for people everywhere to live according to the holy wisdom of nonviolence.

Our encounter with such a God disarms our hearts, and in our hearts, the word of peace takes root: Never again hurt another. Never again support war or killing. Never again be silent in the face of global poverty, global warming, global injustice. Live in peace with one another and all people everywhere. Live in peace with the earth itself.

And so the third stage. Our hearts now set right within us, we hasten down the mountain to dismantle our weapons and feed the hungry. We take hammers to the weapons. We enter legislative chambers and codify our pledges never to hurt or wage war. We turn handguns into hammers, bullets into nails, barracks into shelters for the homeless, fighter bombers into fire prevention planes, tanks into trains, missile silos into organic farms, Trident submarines into parts for mass transit, Pentagons into low-income housing. According to the prophet, the nations will beat swords into plowshares. They’ll transform their spears of violence into pruning hooks of service. More, they’ll let the study of war fall into neglect, tactics and strategies forgotten, war scrolls left to rot and ruin. And with that, war will be abolished once and for all.

Once we meet God, sense God’s boundless love, and receive God’s words of peace, we are forever transformed into people of creative nonviolence, active compassion, and disarming love. From now on, we work for the disarmament of the world. We are peacemakers, servants, sons and daughters of the God of peace.

This will be our mission for the rest of our lives. Advent invites us to embark anew on that journey to the God of peace and the work of peace, to walk, from now on, in the light of peace.

Fr. John Dear, S.J. is an internationally known voice for peace and Christian nonviolence. He is a Pax Christi USA Ambassador of Peace and currently lives and works in New Mexico. His many books include: Transfiguration; The Questions of Jesus; and Living Peace.