Advent 4
A meditation by The Rev. Cathy H. George
“The wolf shall lie down with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the
lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child
shall play over the hold of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy on my entire holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Isaiah 11:6-9
There will be time to hurry.
There will
be time to push ahead, to speed up. There
will be time to get it all done. There will
be time to be anxious, efficient and effective. There will be time for high functioning and multitasking. For now, Advent offers us serenity, beauty, peace and calm in
the midst of days filled with frenzy. Take in
the richness of the colors alone, rose, lavender, white and purple, savor the beauty.
It is all about us; it is all about you and
God, me and God, our secrets, our joys,
what hurts, what makes us happy. And it
is always about more than us. We live in a
world that is not where we want it to be.
Nations across the globe are in the throes of
violence, people go hungry, natural disasters claim untold numbers of lives. Our
world is not where we want it to be.
Isaiah interrupts all that is not right within
us, and all that is not right around us with
his beatific Advent vision of the peaceable
kingdom: “the wolf shall lie down with the
lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the
kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling
together, and a little child shall lead them.”
God’s peaceful ways rule. The Spirit of the
Lord does not judge like we do, by what
eyes can see, or decide by what ears can
hear. The ultimate judge does not look at
appearances, but at what is hidden. The
poor are judged with equity, by the obstacles against them, the trials they face that
maybe no one but God sees or understands.
In God’s kingdom the wolf and the lamb, one
who eats the other for lunch in the wild, graze
together, lie down together. The cow needs
no fence to restrain it and the bear no woods
to hide in; they eat grass together, their young
are playmates. The ferocious king of the
jungle, with a lion’s predatory rights in the
forest, in this neighborhood of harmony has
become a vegetarian, like John the Baptist
eating locusts and wild honey. The lion eats
straw. The most vulnerable and dependent in
the human species, a nursing child, is climbing over an asp, a toddler places its hand over
the hole of the adder’s den. The young do not
need protection because no one will “hurt or
destroy on all God’s holy mountain; for the
earth will be filled with the knowledge of God
as the waters cover the sea.”
What won’t lie down together in you? What
lion will not stop preying upon you? What
lamb within you is frightened for its life?
Welcome them to meet. Our spiritual lives
call together the wild and untamed to meet
with the domesticated. Prayer is integrating us, leading us to a wholeness, bringing us
closer to oneness with God.
The Cherry Tree Carol, sung in Advent, tells
the story of Mary’s announcing to Joseph that
she is pregnant. While on a walk in a cherry
orchard, Mary delivers her news. She asks
Joseph if he will pluck her a cherry, slipping
in, “for I am with child.” Joseph’s response is
to suggest that Mary ask the guy that “brought
thee with child” to pick her a cherry. Inter-
Advent 4
ceding from the womb, Baby Jesus asks the
tree to bend down to give his poor mom
a cherry, and when the tree delivers, this
demonstration of Jesus’ authority over nature even from the womb signals to Joseph
that this is not just any mortal fetus but
one who can give directions to a tree from
the womb that are obeyed! Joseph repents
and is kinder to Mary. Real human beings,
real emotions fill the stories of our faith.
There is room for every part of us, the
disagreeable and the peaceful, the tame
and the wild. The spiritual life is about becoming whole, not presentable. The inside
and the outside, disparate parts of us come
into communion with each other and we
move, slowly and surely over time to the
horizon of the beatific vision of the peaceable kingdom.
For a world at war, for our busy lives in
the midst of a serene season, Advent says:
don’t work at it, don’t add it to your long
page 2
list, don’t figure it out. Behold the beatific
sight, no hurting, no destroying on my holy
mountain. This peaceable kingdom is already here, within us, within every one of
us. The peace of God is at the foundation
of the world. The kingdom of God is within
you. It will never leave. It waits for us.
Stop and listen, it is there, it is never used
up. The serenity in the heart of God beckons us to pause and pray for the peace we
cannot find and cannot see but is here.
The Rev. Cathy H. George, a pastor and
writer who lives in Dorchester, Mass., and
Jaffrey, N.H., offers these Advent meditations for the frenzied season when the
church is an oasis of peace. She is the
priest-in-charge of St. Mary’s Church and
St. Mark’s Church in Dorchester.
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