Today is the second Sunday of Advent, which is Peace Sunday. Last week we talked about the movement of Advent, this movement towards Christ breaking into our lives and our dark situations, as being like a sunrise. The sunrise, of course, starts in the dark as we hope for the light, wondering if our eyes are playing tricks on us when we begin to detect some change. But as the light grows, there comes a time when we don’t wonder anymore if the light of dawn is actually coming. We know it and our hope shifts to that peace of resting in God’s growing light.

As our metaphor of dawn continues to unfold with joy and love over the next two Sundays, hope and peace don’t go away. They remain as undertones, deepening and growing broad, powerful, and assured like the sun itself rising and filling our worlds with light.

So, in this metaphor of dawn, peace begins in the dark and crescendos into full and glorious expression with the risen sun on Christmas and the coming of Christ. In this spectrum, there’s a lot of ways we might experience peace. So, when you think of peace, how does it feel? How do you recognize it? How do you know when peace is present?

Our readings today capture an expansive array of what hopes feels and looks like. The Isaiah reading is a poetic imagination of a peace that is so deep and powerful that even the carnivores no longer hunt for prey. It’s a peace that is so deep that righteousness, wisdom, knowledge, and faithfulness will define all our actions. It’s a peace so deep that the wisdom and innocence of a child is heard and heeded. In the psalm, we hear of a peace that is so deep and enduring that it will last until the moon is no more and even the dangerous mountains will be a source of prosperity for all people. A peace so large and expansive that no one will oppress another again. All of that is done and the lions lay down with the lambs. Doesn’t that imagination and inspiration of Isaiah and the psalmist, the promise of God in the Word, feel good in the body?

But then we get to the 2^nd lesson in Romans. Paul is encouraging this early, tiny church in Rome, surrounded by statues to Zeus and all the rest, to be steadfast in their endeavor to be harmonious. Now, you wouldn’t tell a church to work at being harmonious if they were indeed harmonious. They wouldn’t need to be steadfast to make harmony happen if they were experiencing the kind of peace Isaiah or the psalm described. But they are a church, a people of faith doing life together – perhaps a bit like us. They believe in the promises of Isaiah and were working to be steadfast in living this promise out. That’s a kind of peace, too. How does that feel in your body’s peace-o-meter? Little less good than Isaiah, but not bad, right?

And then we arrive at the gospel for this Sunday of peace and we get John the Baptist, who is making the way straight for Jesus by calling the leaders of the Jewish community a brood of snakes. This is indeed a different glimpse of peace with John the Baptist yelling at the Sadducees and Pharisees. He says basically, “You’re not all that. We see who see who you really are and it ain’t good.” Just you wait ‘til the Messiah comes and he will, “…will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out … and everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.”

How does that feel in your internal peace-o-meter? It’s definitely not Isaiah, right? It’s not even Romans, but it’s still an expression of peace. In our readings today, we have a lot of different expressions and experiences of peace, all of which are valid.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the word for peace is shalom, but shalom is a deeper word than just peace. Shalom is a holistic word that includes our “physical health, emotional well-being, spiritual harmony, social justice, and material prosperity. It describes a state where everything exists in its proper relationship and order.” (https://www.bibleanalysis.org/the-deep-meaning-of-shalom-more-than-just-peace/) Shalom is Isaiah’s vision of peace.

Now, I don’t think any human has ever experienced a full expression of shalom in their life, even if we’ve had glimpses or some good days, because this sounds to me a lot like the coming Kingdom of God, when all is well and made whole until the ending of the moon. And we’re not there just yet.

Last week, I asked you to write down areas of life – your life, family, community, or in the world – where you or we need hope for redemption and renewal. The path we walk from darkness to deep shalom and full sunlight is the path we walk with Christ. But in our Advent readings, we start that walk from the dim light of hope to peace with John the Baptist, the one whose role we’re told is to prepare the way for Jesus. And he does it by calling the Sadducees and the Pharisees a brood of snakes. And perhaps this makes sense. It’s hard to go straight from the stark feeling in our bodies of being in despair to that expansive feeling of Isaiah and shalom in one step, one snap of the fingers. Change doesn’t happen that way. There’s a journey to take and John the Baptist is at the beginning.

If we wanted the shortcut to peace, we could just pretend that everything is OK, right? We all know that kind of “peace” when folks pretend all is well, but underneath the veneer of OK-ness, there is some truth that needs to be said and no one wants to say it.

Saying out loud what is wrong, especially to the people who need to hear it the most, can be very uncomfortable. And yet, here’s John going for it. So perhaps truth-telling is the beginning of peace. After all, there is no true peace unless the deep truth of our souls can be spoken. Truth can be scary to say. It can be scary to hear. There are hardly words I dread more than, “Can I talk with you when you have a minute?”And yet, this is the path to shalom, to a peace that is indeed deep and wide. If we can’t tell the truth, then we’re all just kind of holding our breath and pretending, walking on eggshells. (That has a different feel in the body, doesn’t it?)

There’s an important caveat, though. There are times when people use the importance of truth telling as a way to hurt or bully. I’m sure you’ve seen this, at least online, when someone throws a verbal Molotov cocktail and then hides behind the excuse of, “I’m just telling the truth.” The truth telling we’re talking about today is the truth telling of peace, the truth telling that’s grounded in hope and will lead to joy and love. So, if there’s a truth or two bubbling in you today that you’re wondering ‘Do I really need to say this?,’ ask yourself, is it a truth that is part of the dawn of Christ in your life that is grounded in hope and will lead to joy and love when it is heard? If you said it, would it help you move from feeling like you’re holding your breath to feeling that expansiveness of peace? If you answer yes, I pray John the Baptist inspires you and for Christ to walk with you on this scary part of the journey to shalom.

Saying what needs to be said may just be the glimmer of a peace that begins when darkness is still all around. It may be scary. It may not feel like shalom in your body, but more like how you felt listening to John the Baptist cause a scene. But it won’t stay that way, like the dawn moving from the dark, through the dim light of early morning, to the warmth of full sunshine, your peace will deepen and grow towards shalom.

Peace is complex and feels like a lot of things, but it is all part of this unfolding experience of the dawning light of Christ. Shalom is what Jesus will bring, can bring, is bringing to the places of darkness in the world. This is the peace that is coming into the world, into these hard places through Christ. And perhaps we participate in that transformation with John the Baptist, with Christ by telling and hearing important truths, whatever they may be. However we manage to tell our hope-filled truths, may they be on the path to God’s promised and cherished shalom for us all.

AMEN