Each Advent we light candles of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. We wait, and we pray until the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus arrives and with fanfare, we welcome a baby who is the Savior.
If we are really attuned, we know we wait not just to celebrate Jesus’ birth but also the day of the Second Coming. The day when perhaps finally we can forever have hope, peace, joy and love.
This Advent, I find myself waiting on and praying especially for peace. It seems that we now only imagine peace to come about when we all finally agree with each other. When the one of us who has shouted the loudest and longest wears the others down, we will finallyhave peace. The world would be so peace-filled if everyone could just see that I am right and start agreeing with me!
Yet the peace we are called to and the peace we wait on isn’t so much about agreeing with one another as it is living into the kin-dom of God. It is the sort of peace that comes when we set aside our differences, find our common humanity and live into the command to love one another.
This Advent falls on the heels of the murders at a Kroger in Kentucky and the slaughter at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. These tragedies make waiting for peace seem endless. It makes me cry out with the psalmist, “How long?” How can we even be brave enough to hopefor peace? What about loving one another? This peace requires us to raise our voices when we encounter racism, anti-Semitism and other injustices. This kind of peace is difficult, it challenges us to get uncomfortable. It asks us to show up and love the people on the fringes. We are asked to speak up when more love is needed and to listen when we ourselves fall short.
I had a glimpse of this kind of peace last week as I prayed in the local synagogue with my sisters and brothers from a wide range of faith traditions. In those moments we were together as a community and we were human, the beloved children of God. We showed up for one another and we prayed. We did not suddenly agree on all things religious or political; we did all make an effort to show up, to see one another, to reject hate in our own community and world.
I am reminded of the lyrics, “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.” This Advent I am waiting on, hoping for and praying for peace. I am profoundly aware that every day I can make choices to work toward this peace.
REBECCA GRESHAM-KESNER is pastor at Faith Presbyterian Church in Medford, New Jersey. Outside of church and family life, you can find her in nature, finding fun ways to be creative or asking awkwardly deep questions of people she just met.
