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Advent devotions 2007

November 27 - Prepare, turn away and take up the cause
By Tamara Shantz, assistant campus pastor

Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5 (NRSV)
Scroll down for complete scripture.

Devotional:
Because of college and graduate school, my experience of Advent until now has been obscured by the realities of exams and the end of a semester. My preparations for Christmas have typically been limited to a vague attention to presents for family members and occasionally my housemates. So our theme for this week, "Get Ready!", is instructive for me as I reflect upon the beautiful vision of Isaiah 2:1-5. Isaiah offers us a view of the future that would require a dramatic turn of the world as we know it now. In this passage we hear the familiar phrase that "they shall beat their swords into plowshares….and neither shall they learn war anymore."

But what does it mean for us to prepare for the fulfillment of this vision? Prepare for the coming of the infant who shows us the way up to the mountain of God? Isaiah’s words of salvation and reconciliation are nestled between passages of severe judgment upon the betrayal and sin of the people of God. And while this passage ends with an invitation to the house of Jacob to come and walk in the light of the Lord, it implies that there is need for a turn: a turn away from injustice and the ways of war, a turn away from failing to defend the orphan and take up the widow’s cause. Perhaps this Advent season, we should remember that our hope in the world transforming power of God's love through Jesus Christ cannot be separated from our reflection upon our own realities of injustice. What does it mean to follow the Prince of Peace in the context of a nation that is not only at war, but also engages in torture and other violations of human rights?

My hope lies in the interconnection of judgment and salvation – that even amidst the sin and devastation of the people to whom Isaiah is speaking, God still issues the invitation, still calls us to God's holy mountain, so that we might walk in the light of the Lord. May we heed that call.

Scripture: Isaiah 2:1-5 (NRSV)
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In days to come
the mountain of the Lord's house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
'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.'
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!

Posted at 17:47 #