Tuesday, December 3, 2024
Memorial of Saint Francis Xavier, Priest
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Justice and joy
Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.
And all the people said, AMEN! And we leaped and laughed with joy, because this justice was for all of us, no one left out, no one secretly getting more than they deserved.
Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid. The calf and the young lion shall eat together, and a little child shall lead them.
Often in my checkered past a child has told me to do the right things, usually in a grocery store when some item was in the lower part of the cart and I forgot to pay. “You have to go back, Grandpa! You have to pay for that!”
So I do, but some penny-pinching part of me resents that kid, speaking truth, meting out justice, and not losing an ounce of joy in the process. There is no guile in that kid’s look at me, with his hands on his hips, and I can’t help but smile.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors, together their young shall rest. The lion will eat hay like the ox. The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the young child will put her hand into the viper’s nest.
Of course Jesus comes as a baby. All of us do, and all of us are relatively quiet in our sin until later, when we spur one another on. But Jesus, quiet in his cradle and later in his village playgrounds gave no cause for his parents to admonish him. No, rather, his mother watches and ponders, she treasures all that happens in her heart.
The Bible doesn’t tell us much. We can read between the lines, and we can believe what we read about Jesus the boy who was also God. That’s the essence of Christian theology. The poetry of Isaiah bears out our beliefs, even though written hundreds of years before.
On that day the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for all the nations, including the Gentiles. There shall be no harm nor ruin on all the holy mountain, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Diana Butler Bass writes of 1 Thessalonians, Paul’s first epistle, written before any of the four gospels. It is one of the lectionary’s texts on the first Sunday of Advent (just a couple days ago).
Justice eludes us. Joy sometimes seems a taunt. Yet justice and joy were the first words of Paul. This is the most ancient wisdom from the earliest followers of Jesus. The oldest words are the first words of Advent.
Be on guard, do not despair, the day is at hand, restore whatever is lacking in your faith. There’s more afoot than we know. God promised.
God’s promises are not bound by anything his kids demand, but they are always for their benefit. Time flies, God’s promises are solid rock. I for one am happy to wait on those promises, and stand on them forever.
(Isaiah 11, Psalm 72, Luke 10)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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