I vividly remember Christmas morning a few years ago. When my cell phone rang, I knew that the news would not be good. “Come, now,” was the quiet request.

John and Linda lived across the street from the church where I pastored. Linda was a regular on Sunday’s while John assumed a more hands-off approach to church matters. When I arrived at the hospital, I met Linda and John’s sons huddled beside a poorly decorated Christmas tree in the ICU waiting room. With their beloved husband and father on life support, this was anything but a peace-filled Christmas scene. And yet, Linda told me of her deep and abiding faith that John was safe in God’s arms.

John labored in and out of consciousness but in his more lucid moments he acknowledged my prayer with a hand squeeze. Linda described the peace in her heart amid the chaos of such tragic surroundings. When the end came two days later, through her tears Linda was firm. “I am OK and I will be OK, because I know God’s peace will guide me.”

How do we experience God’s peace in our lives?

Mark’s Gospel, unlike Matthew and Luke, doesn’t begin the Christmas story with the birth of Jesus. The gospel story begins with John quoting from Isaiah 40. Mark brings the good news of Jesus Christ, “See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,”

According to commentaries, it is not that Isaiah was predicting John the Baptist, but Mark sees a comparison between Isaiah 40:3 about a voice of preparation and the preaching John did in the wilderness. Isaiah provides a frame of reference for understanding John the Baptist.

Jesus and his contemporary, John the Baptizer, came into a similar world of fear where both Jews and Gentiles were divided, afraid, and desperately looking for a leader, a King. Zealots, who were outside the mainstream, were rising up, saying we know what to do. We have the solution to address your fears.

John the Baptizer was a symbol of the voice from the wilderness. He preached on the edge of town and was viewed with suspicion by the religious authorities. Those who listened to John were familiar with Isaiah’s prophecy. They thought Isaiah’s reassurance was just for them. For Mark, John the Baptist is like the voice that offered “comfort” to the Israelites in the wilderness. The first century Jews in Jesus’ time were not in exile, but they were under Roman rule and Isaiah 40 offered hope for their lives that was anything but peace filled.

How do we experience God’s peace in our lives?

John called believers to repent and show their lives had changed by how they lived, to think differently, and then to act differently. John’s message was one of waiting, of hope, and of repentance that would produce change. He spoke with authority and reassurance that “the one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals.”

John always pointed beyond himself to the one that was to come. John had to let go of his own ego and even his own message to point to Jesus. Richard Rhor writes, “…such humility does not just happen. It is surely the end product of a thousand letting-goes and a thousand acts of devotion, which for John the Baptist gradually edged God in.”

Isaiah makes clear that we are not the ones who usher in the new era but it is God that brings it forward: “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” We are challenged as God’s people to move ahead or to turn back to business as usual. We must be intentional in thousands of letting-goes and acts of devotion as Rohr described, “ to yield to God’s new vision.”

How do we experience God’s peace in our lives?

The image presented in Isaiah is of all the world living in harmony. But you know what? We are still waiting for that reality where we live in justice and peace, love our neighbours, love ourselves, and fully trust and are obedient to God’s love. During Advent, we wait and ponder: What would it be like to live with peace in our own hearts that makes it possible to live in peace with others?

John Calvin lived in an age in which the future of Christianity was in doubt. The Psalm we read in today’s call to worship was for him a reminder of God’s everlasting faithfulness. He resonated with the Psalmist’s complaint that God had forgotten His covenant with His people and abandoned His church to her enemies. For Calvin, the Psalms focus on praise was the antithesis to the woes of our human situation. Lament and praise, sadness and celebration, joy and sorrow, are what it means to be human. “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations.” Economic crisis, natural disaster, or serious illness does not cancel out God’s work of peace in us.

How do we experience God’s peace in our lives?

The peace that Jesus births in our world is one that passes all understanding, peace that is wrought in vulnerability, peace that does not seek its own way. Chaos that is within us and around us does not preclude God’s peace. I remember these words from an ICU waiting room, “I am OK and I will be OK, because I know God’s peace will guide me.”