Living in the now, and in the not yet...



For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. -Isaiah 9:6

Prince of Peace...one of my favorite titles for Jesus. Even hearing the word "peace" makes me feel better...calmer...more settled on the inside. In Hebrew, the word for peace, "shalom," doesn't necessarily mean the absence of conflict. Again and again, as I read about the word and its meaning, I was struck by a recurring theme: wholeness.

To be whole is to be well, to be complete and undivided in heart and soul, as well as in our health and relationships. Wholeness bespeaks a condition where we lack nothing, having the quality of being finished. When we use the greeting, "Peace to you," these are the ideas that we convey to one another. I wish for you health, and that your heart, mind and soul be whole and complete.

We live in a fractured world, and many of us today are living fractured lives...lives that feel unfinished, broken, and incomplete. And yet, in this Advent season, the Prince of Peace comes to us and offers his wholeness. With him present in our broken world, we can say with the hymn writer, "It is well with my soul." Do you feel it now? This wellness, this sense of peace and wholeness? I do on some days, and then on other days it seems only a distant dream...a wish that lies just beyond my grasp.

This is the nature of living in the now, and in the not yet. As we've said before, we celebrate the coming of the Prince of Peace at his birth...we anticipate his coming into our lives in the here and now, and we look forward to his coming again in glory. We are, in a very real sense, caught betwixt and between...in the mystery of what is, and what is not yet. Jesus himself, when he spoke of the Kingdom of God, described it as being present among us now, and coming in the future.

The kingdom process reminds me of the planting of a seed. We plant a seed in the ground, water it...and wait. Somehow, in a process that we cannot fully see or understand, the seed becomes plant...it grows tall and strong, and eventually bears fruit. Likewise, God has come and planted himself among us...a seed planted in our world...a seed planted in our hearts. It is the seed of peace that grows within us today...we cannot fully comprehend how it works and grows...we cannot dissect the mystery of faith, but we anticipate the tree of life it will become, whose fruit in us is peace.

Peace to you this day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contemplative Politics

Image
I began writing this blog 2 1/2 years ago...what can only be described as several lifetimes ago, from the perspective of the events that have transpired in my life since May of 2010.   I won't take the time to recount those events, but suffice to say, I never imagined that I would use this space to contemplate politics, or the place that our political perspectives may take on the path of our individual spiritual journeys... To rightly share my story, I must go back in time to January of 2008, when I, like many Americans, first heard then-candidate Senator Barack Obama speak after his groundbreaking win in the Iowa caucus.  I remember the experience quite vividly, because I was mesmorized by the ideal he seemed to represent.  As I sat in a theater this afternoon watching the Dinesh D'Souza political documentary "2016", I was struck by the fact that much of our political consciousness is defined by what each of us projects upon the candidate of our choice. ...
Read more

Crawl into a box, and wrap yourself up as a gift to others...

Image
What if we could wrap a box of love, and put it under the Christmas tree? What would it look like? Would it rattle if you shook it? Would it be heavy or light? I am woefully behind on my Christmas preparations this year...there's no Christmas tree in my front room...no Christmas candles around the house....no presents wrapped, or even waiting to be wrapped! What is wrong with me?? When I was a kid, my Dad sometimes traveled for work, and periodically, my Mom would let me sleep with her while he was away...on those nights, she would tell me stories from her childhood...and one that comes to mind is Christmas. When my Mom was a young girl in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Christmas festivities didn't really begin at all until the week between December 18 and 25. During this week, the general mercantile store would add a toy department, and for just that one week...the kids would ooh and ahh over all the toys in the display window. Christmas trees went up on Christmas Eve, and of...
Read more

A question to ponder...

Image
Last night I was reading The Richest Man in Babylon , by George Clason. If you've never heard of the book, it's a classic...an allegory on the subject of how to wisely handle your finances. Sometimes when I'm reading a book, I stumble upon a statement or question that is totally unexpected in its impact, and last night was such a time. In this chapter, the story was of a young man who had squandered the money his father entrusted to him to begin his life as a man. As a consequence of his bad choices and seemingly insurmountable debt, the young man ultimately ends up being sold into slavery... While a slave, the young man has a conversation with the wife of his owner, and relays his tale of woe...how his life has been marred by "ill fortune." In response to his tale, the wife asks this question: "Have you the soul of a slave or the soul of a free man?" If you happen to be a Christian, or even if you're simply familiar with the writings of the Apostle ...
Read more