He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; 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. - Isaiah 2:4
Advent has this very strong apocalyptic undercurrent to it. We often ignore that vibe. It seems to make an odd fit with the holiday season. The End of Everything does not really sync up with Christmas lights and children choirs singing about baby Jesus. It’s a wild-eyed guy on a street corner yelling about doomsday next to a Salvation Army Santa.
I think part of that incongruity comes from us equating the apocalypse with chaos and destruction. Yet that is not the picture that the prophet Isaiah paints. Rather than the world ending in bloodshed, it depicts God being among the people and that presence transforming the weapons of war into instruments of peace. In truth, this is not The End. It is a new beginning being born from an end (let us all turn now in our hymnals to “Closing Time” by Semisonic).
Isaiah’s vision is a hope for rebirth, of things being made right. It is a hope that the follower of Jesus must cling to and work towards. In a week when we have witnessed another round of terrible mass shootings in Colorado and Virginia, it is a message that we desperately need. Swords need to be turned into plowshares and guns need to transformed into gardening tools. Violence and hatred must be stricken from humanity’s curriculum.
The birth of Jesus—this epic moment that Advent both remembers and anticipates—is the nexus event for this great hope. Yet everything does not transform in the blink of an eye. It is more organic than that. The child in the manger was the beginning of this transformation. He is still changing us, calling us forward into a rebirth of our selves and the world around us. At the very least, that is what I hope and hope is the best place to start in Advent.
