Wrenched away.......Good Friday

I remember the day he died.  I was sure the earth had stopped spinning and yet it tilted under my feet.  The sun no longer gave warmth.  I had to remind myself to inhale for breath no longer came unbidden.

In those moments, hours, even days following, my life seemed a journey to the center of the earth, where chaos rules and the order of this world is unknown.  Someone had taken all that I knew and ripped in in two, from top to bottom and a new reality came flooding in.   Nothing had changed - horns honked and children laughed and groceries needed to be bought - and yet everything had changed.  Fear and dread would startle me awake in the wee hours of the morning.  I wanted to find a place to hide away, to curl into myself, to learn how to breathe again, to figure out how this could have happened.

The world shifted in an emergency room in a strange town.... 

       and on a cross on a hill called Golgotha. 

         Death for the sake of a new creation.  

A quiet yearning for peace

"World Peace" has become the punch line in too many jokes, especially comedies about beauty pageants.  You and I know that world peace is no laughing matter, even as it seems an impossible goal, a wild and crazy dream, even an oxymoron.  As the picture tells us, world peace will mark the dawning of a new age.

Cosmic peace has been both the image and goal of God's creation from the very beginning.  The prophet Isaiah speaks about this cosmic cessation of violence, retribution, competition, and imperialism.
                    Isaiah 2.4 "they shall beat their swords into plowshares"
                    Isaish11.6 "the wolf shall live with the lamb"
                    Isaiah 25.8 "'the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces."

Here in Syracuse I hear too many reports of violence and violent death.  There are too many families torn apart by domestic violence.  Workplace violence has become too common for anyone's health.

It is no wonder that in this Advent season, so many of us are quietly yearning for peace. But Isaiah's picture of cosmic harmony must wait for God.  Until then, if you want peace, do justice.  That is what we are called to do.