On Sunday we started the season of Advent – the weeks of waiting for Christmas.  It’s a time when we are called to step away from the lessons of the world and re-remember the message of Christmas – the message that Christ brought and continues to bring to our world.

Last night I remembered to turn on the television right at 5pm when President Obama was giving his Afghanistan speech.  Looking out over the young cadets in his audience and to the soldiers listening remotely I was reminded that sometimes I forget that we are a country at war – and have been for the past 8 years!  That is – until I turn on the TV or read the newspaper.  Karl Barth supposedly challenged us to read the Bible in one hand, and the newspaper in the other.   When we live and make decisions based on biblical values the world we live in should grow closer and closer to the good world that God intended.  As one who is easily seduced by idealism it’s easy for me to desire that world to exist right now.  I want heaven on earth and I want it now!  Evolution, on the other hand,  is a slow process and God who created our universe and humanity seems to have eternal patience.  Perhaps the pathway to peace takes longer and is more convoluted that I can even imagine.  And so I will pray for President Obama, I will pray for all the soldiers already in Afghanistan and those to be sent, and I will especially pray  for the days to come – may they come sooner than later and bring with them the message of Christmas – Peace on Earth.

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised up above the hills. Peoples shall stream to it, 2and many nations 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. 3He shall judge between many peoples, and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away; 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; 4but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid;  (Micah 4:1-4a; New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved)