Advent: Week 2 - PEACE

Last week we lit the Candle of HOPE. This is now the second Sunday of Advent and today we light the second candle. This is the Candle of PEACE.

This Traditional second candle is often associated with the biblical reading from Isaiah 9:6-7:

“For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

Much has been said about the violence of our world. The media sensationalizes it on a regular basis. We can turn on our TV’s, computers, smartphones and other devices and easily tune into the violent scenes all over the globe. Have you ever stopped to think how this has affected us? Is it not an amazing thought that 100 years ago the average person had never witnessed a person being killed, yet today the average 3-year-old has because she can see it on TV? From that initial shock he is then subjected to it literally thousands of times before he even reaches adulthood.

Christianity and other religions all teach us a message of HOPE and PEACE yet as a people have we learned from that teaching? Most, if not all religions and traditions have been besmirched with violence, pain and suffering. Why is that? Why is it that history has seen the Crusades, the Salem witch burnings, shameful cover-ups, jihad and so much more. Every honourable Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, New Ager would like to bury this in the past and leave it there. But it keeps coming back to haunt us. It keeps coming from history to present itself to us at the dinner table through the medium called News. Certainly not Good News.

Recently I was stunned by a show I was watching with friends called XXX. This show made me realize that years ago when you picked up the Newspaper you would read feel good stories. That was the news of the day; not war, rape and other crime. True, we do live in a different age. We live in an age that sensationalized these things. It is almost as if they have become our idols of the present era.

Reaching back to my own roots I see a man who came to bring a message of peace to a world that was embroiled in a time of violence. I see a man who came to clean up his religious roots and expose hypocrisy, theft, violence and more (sound familiar?) Although I take note. He did not come to hide the shame of his tradition. He came to expose it. How does that bring peace, especially when we see, in contrast, how it ended his life with such violence?

History is not for us to hide. History is not for us to judge. History is not for us to feel shame; because shame has no real purpose. History is His-story. I apologize to the Feminists but this is what it’s called. Perhaps if it was called herstory it would have turned out differently, I don’t know. But the point I make is that it’s not MY STORY. My story starts now, this morning as I type this, watching the soft snow fall outside my living room window, oh so gentle and pure white. My Story is about PEACE. Because  True, my own personal history is not always pretty to look at. But in this moment I recommit to that message of peace. Why? Again I say it, PEACE BEGINS WITH ME.

Advent: Week 2 - PEACE