Come, Let Us Walk in the Light: An Advent Invitation to Go Deeper

Where Has the Year Gone?

We are here on the first Sunday in Advent. It's the start of another church year and the start of our journey to Christmas.

So how's the year gone for you? Are you thinking right now, "Gosh, where has the year gone? How can we really be talking about Christmas already?" Or maybe you're thinking about how slowly the year has dragged on for you?

We all come to this moment with different experiences of the year past, different hopes for the year ahead, and different feelings about Christmas and the festive season. For some, the lead-up to Christmas is a time of joy and anticipation and celebration. For others, a time of the stress of too much to do. And yet for others, a time of loneliness, grieving, or just another day. Our experience of Christmas can be a complex one — all of these things at once.

For me, I'm often so busy and pushed in the lead-up to Christmas that I barely have time to stop and think and prepare. I run around mainly getting my work stuff done, meeting the pre-Christmas deadlines, buying presents, negotiating where we'll spend the day. And so I get to Christmas Day itself, sing some carols, listen to the story, and think, "Right, well, all the logistics are done. I'm ready for Advent now." Hmm, maybe I'll do it better next year. And the cycle starts again.

The Invitation of Advent

The thing about Advent, though, is it's the time when we prepare to receive anew the most precious gift of God dwelling within us. The invitation of Advent is to move beyond the surface of the season and the logistics of the day itself and get intentional about actively waiting for the birth of Christ.

But what does that look like — to be intentional and actively wait?

Isaiah's Striking Vision

This week's Old Testament reading gives us some clues. In Isaiah chapter two, verses one to five, we have this striking vision of many people coming together, being taught the ways of God, and living that out by turning away from war and living in peace. There's an invitation here:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.

Isaiah was written and refined over a period of time characterized by conflict and political pressure through the expansionist policies of the first great Middle Eastern empire, the Assyrians. At this time, Israel was split into two kingdoms, north and south. And in the course of Isaiah's lifetime, one kingdom took up arms against the other with devastating consequences. It was also a time of increasing urbanization — literally the movement of people to bigger towns and cities — and a time where there was a considerable difference between those who were well off and those who were struggling to make ends meet.

A key question for that time, and one that Isaiah attempts to answer through striking prophecy, is this: how are the people of God to respond to their situation?

Sound Familiar?

Like Isaiah's time, we also live in a time of conflict and war, and we're hearing about it all the time. Matthew Julius, a Uniting Church advocate within the Transforming Worship circle, writes:

Around the world and in our lives, we see people and countries captive to the forces of violence and revenge. We see countries sacrificing innocent lives, including children, in conflict zones in the Middle East, Ukraine, and Africa — justified through the desire for victory through violence.

And we're encouraged to pick a side, or tempted to sit in judgment of those situations and say, "Who's right and who's wrong?" Social media algorithms are also widening our divide, creating echo chambers so we only hear from people who think the same as us, and we become entrenched in our positions, choosing conflict with those who disagree with us.

A Different Way

But the vision of Isaiah and the invitation of Advent is quite different:

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.

Advent is a time to ask: Who is this Christ we're waiting for, and how should we respond to him? It's a time to actively sit in those questions and to wait with intention, exploring anew and preparing for Christ — being intentional, open, and sitting with the sometimes difficult texts of Advent, giving us an opportunity to be changed if we give it time.

Swords into Plowshares

Isaiah gives us a most beautiful and hopeful image of the kingdom of God:

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 anymore.

In Isaiah chapters seven, nine, and eleven, this vision is expanded with descriptions of Emmanuel — literally "God with us" — the Prince of Peace.

Participating in the Vision of Peace

We can participate in this vision of peace. In fact, we're invited to. And to be a messenger of peace and to bring peace into our world, we need to start from within — with this active attention and stance towards God. This requires us to sit with the difficulty of the passages we will hear during Advent, to go deeper, to be willing to learn anew, and not be the fixer, the solver, or the judge. We need to put those things back into God's hands and be ready to participate in God's kingdom.

We're invited to resist the temptation of staying on the surface in the lead-up to Christmas. For me, it's being stuck in busy mode — I need to resist that temptation and go deeper, and be open and ready with intention, with prayer, and with longing for that vision of the kingdom of God.