Choose your vision well!

"This then, is the reason for the season!" Those were the words that Pastor Phil Kniss used at the close of his sermon on this, the second Sunday of Advent. The sermon began with to competing visions for Advent. One was epitomized by an Advent calendar that is available for sale at Harrods. For a mere one million dollars, you can buy a huge advent calendar that includes among other things a speed boat, a gold watch, and a designer kitchen. But Advent began as a time of fasting and spiritual cleansing, sitting in silence and preparing for the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child. Isaiah 11:1-10 sets out a vision of God's Kingdom, a peaceable kingdom where lion lays down with a lamb and a child leads all. This is, and has always been, God's vision for the world. With the coming of Jesus, God set in place the means to usher in this vision of what creation can be. And Pastor Phil urged us to make this our vision. In fact, it MUST be our vision as followers of Jesus. Can we engage the "other" without destroying them and without giving up who we are? To fully engage, without violence, those who differ from us, is to live into the peaceable kingdom. This Advent, perhaps we can hear the call of John the Baptist, recorded in Matthew 3:1-12, to prepare the way of the Lord, and usher in the Kingdom.