Reflection

What does ‘peace’ mean to you this Advent season? Have you found words to wrap around your longings for peace this year?

I have been really appreciating the addition of prayers for peace to our Advent worship services. The invitation to pause to pray for peace together and the opportunity to hear and see visions of peace through the eyes of different people from our congregation have been deeply meaningful to me, especially as we navigate a complicated Advent in light of current events in Israel-Palestine.

This past Sunday, as it happens, I was watching the livestream from home, having caught COVID late last week (and yes, I’m very thankful to be feeling much better already), when Walter’s prayer and artwork captured my attention.

Suddenly, peace looked to me like a cozy, safe, warm, quiet home where I can rest comfortably. Peace sounds like being able to join my community for worship, even when I can’t be there in person. Peace smells like hot peppermint tea. Peace is the concern of the people who reached out to make sure I was okay. Peace is having access to time off when I’m sick and colleagues who graciously step in to pick up the extra bits that I cannot. And yes, Walter, peace also feels like my soft, blue blanket!

As Walter led us in prayer, I was reminded to appreciate God’s peace in my life and to acknowledge that God shows up in the middle of our very ordinary lives now, just as God did for the people living so many years ago in the time of Jesus. And I prayed for all those who don’t enjoy the same peace that I can so easily take for granted, that they might also know peace very soon. The juxtaposition of our longings for peace on behalf of people living in very real conflict zones and gratitude for that peace which we hold now is complicated—but there’s something about finding ways to hold both that feels good and right, that feels like faith.

Peace is here already, even as we long for peace that feels far off. Perhaps much as we remember a God who came to dwell among us and who is among us yet, even as we long for a day when God will come again. Perhaps this is the complicated hope to which Advent invites us—a hope that isn’t easy, but that is spacious—large enough to hold our joys and our sorrows, our present and our future.

May God’s peace enfold you, and our world, in tangible ways as we continue this Advent journey together.

- Pastor Kathy McCamis