Advent weekly reflections: Looking forward

01/12/2019

It is good to prepare for Christmas, to remember the promises of God, his coming in Jesus, and celebrate by sharing love with family and friends. But there is so much more to look forward to! The prophet Isaiah paints a vivid picture of a time when all nations will be at peace, when there will be no more tears and pain, no weapons or division and justice will prevail.
Read Isaiah 2.1-5
White arrows stuck on a wall pointing upwards. Jungwoo Hong

A group of Christians has been taking the words of Isaiah literally in recent years. In places where gun and knife crime are maiming and destroying communities, they have been collecting guns and knives, melting them, and turning them into garden tools, inspired by Micah and Isaiah’s vision of God’s people beating their ‘swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.

Christian waiting and looking forward is never just a passive thing. It is about allowing our hope for the future to change the world in which we live. It is about being open to the challenge of the Spirit, recognising where God is already at work so we can join in. We are not just imagining the future. We have a God who works today in our lives to make this future a reality and calls us to join in with him.

Archbishop Justin Welby and Rev Isabelle Hamley

Bible readings are taken from The New Revised Standard Version (Anglicized Edition), copyright 1989, 1995 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.