A Time For Peace

             Billy Crystal has written a wonderful book, autobiographical in character called Still Foolin’ Them.  It is a remarkable statement about aging.  He has reached his sixty-fifth birthday and is reflecting on his life and what it means to get older.  I am also getting older, all of us are, and it is wonderful to read his story and fit it into my own life.  As many people have said, “Getting old is not for sissies,” and I certainly agree with that.  With aging come lots of things that we aren’t ready for.  Medical problems build up and we begin to understand that none of us are going to be here forever.  That ought to be obvious, but it really isn’t.   Most of us live our lives in expectation of their never ending.  We approach the world with a kind of selfishness that causes us problems and doesn’t work too well in terms of what God has in mind for his creation.

            I love the passage from Isaiah that talks about how God will develop redemption of this creation.  A root will grow from the stump of Jesse, says the prophet and that root will produce a branch that will cause the wolf to lie down with the lamb and the lion to be a partner of the kid.  They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord God.  This wonderful passage is a prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, whom we celebrate at Christmas.  The birth of the Christ who brought the Love of God to this earth, is what this is all about, helping us to understand the strength of Love in the living of our lives.  The way that this Love shows itself is the way that we treat the poor and those treated unjustly by the world; Peace is the result of this magnificent Love.  It is something that is called out of all of us by the God who created each of us.  It is how we are called to live.

            In this Christmas season, we don’t see much of this anymore.  The television set is crying out to all of us to go shopping for more inexpensive bargains.  We are being asked to spend these days in the pursuit of things, not justice; for trinkets, not welfare for the poor.   Living like this is not what God has in mind for us.  He wants the poor to be fed, clothed, sheltered and helped.  Whether this suits us or not is not important.  That there be justice on this earth is required of all of us.  It is not something that God will do in a great stroke of magic.  We are the way that creation will be made whole.  That is why we are here.  

            This Christmas season needs again to be a time of reminding ourselves of what it is that we are called to do and to be.  None of us can fix this world by ourselves; but as communities of those who are led by the Christ, we can be a beacon to the world of what it is that God requires of us all.