Peace Will Be the Norm: Advent Reflection on Peace

Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Yet for all this, his anger is not turned away,
his hand is still upraised.
“Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger,
in whose hand is the club of my wrath!
I send him against a godless nation,
I dispatch him against a people who anger me,
to seize loot and snatch plunder,
and to trample them down like mud in the streets.
But this is not what he intends,
this is not what he has in mind;
his purpose is to destroy,
to put an end to many nations.
‘Are not my commanders all kings?’ he says.
‘Has not Kalno fared like Carchemish?
Is not Hamath like Arpad,
and Samaria like Damascus?
As my hand seized the kingdoms of the idols,
kingdoms whose images excelled those of Jerusalem and Samaria--
shall I not deal with Jerusalem and her images
as I dealt with Samaria and her idols?’ "
I​saiah 10:1-11

Peace will be the norm!

Not only do these verses tell of the joyous coming birth of Jesus, but also the peace and unity that will manifest through the Spirit of God in Jesus. That same Spirit stretches across millennia into today’s world.

The text shares that Jesus would judge from a greater truth originating deep within, where the Spirit of God dwells, the seat of righteousness. What seems impossible to human senses will be the norm. 

What seems impossible to human senses will be the norm.

Jesus will advocate for the needy and the poor of the earth. The wicked will be measured and judged by Christ’s word - not by outdoing them in wickedness. Differences that normally divide will unite. Might will not threaten gentleness, and gentleness will not be disdained by might. Unity through interconnectedness, where each being has its fit, will flourish.

On the Holy mountain of God, no one and nothing will harm or destroy because to be in the knowledge of God is to be life-giving. The knowledge of God will saturate the earth as the waters cover the sea. And so, in the words of the great teacher Howard Thurman:

‘Do whatever it takes, whatever it takes, my friend, to tunnel all the way down through all these layers, until you hit this eternal residue in you. For it is where nothing can abide that is not authentic. It is where there is no barrier. It is in you. And when the God in your spirit makes contact with the God of life, then there is established, in that moment, a courage that can turn any darkness into light-- any darkness into light. 

​What seems impossible to the human understanding, for ushering peace and wholeness into the world, was declared possible millennia ago and continues to apply today.

Shema Roberts
Seminary Intern
​Creation Justice Ministries

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