A Prayer for Peace [Advent 4C - Micah 5:2-5a]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Micah 5:2-5a

 

A Prayer for Peace

Trinity Church, Lansingburgh

 

Their prayer was a cry for all that had been lost and a longing for what had never been.  In that sense, Micah’s people didn’t ask for much except what seemed forever out of reach.  They didn’t pray for luxuries, like vast wealth or obscene riches.  They didn’t strive for power or influence.  They didn’t long for fame or glory. 

 

They just wanted to be able to let their children play outside.  They wanted to walk carelessly though a park or daydream by a stream.  They wanted to fall asleep knowing they would wake up in the morning.  They didn’t pray for luxuries; they prayed for peace.

 

But they lived with war.  And so their children stayed indoors, shielded from the threat of Assyrian arrows.  The parks were battlegrounds, and the streams ran red.  And in place of day dreams they had nightmares.  Because one never knew when a battering ram might crash the silence of the night or a sword shatter a restless slumber.  Life was a series of tragedies. 

 

And it felt impossibly hopeless.  Israel, in the north, had been obliterated; the nation devastated into desolation; the few survivors were scattered and forgotten – lost tribes in a lost world.  And now Jerusalem, the southern capital, was under siege.  The Assyrian Empire was bloodthirsty and hungry for conquest.  And had a terrible track record of success.

 

In a world of nightmares, Micah, the prophet, had a dream.  But dreams feel flimsy compared to steel blades and swift chariots.  People were fighting to simply survive – the day, the moment.  It is difficult to gaze into the distant future when tomorrow isn’t promised.  But still the prophet offered his dream to this hopeless people.  Hoping it might take root in thirsty souls.

 

It was a dream that defied any semblance of reality – but then again, most dreams are like that.  In a time of war, in a world of violence, Micah dreamed about peace; he promised security.  What the people had always wanted.  To live in peace and dwell securely.  To stand under the sky and not smell the smoldering stench of war.  To hear laughing children instead of weeping mothers.

 

To not see broken little bodies on the news.  To no longer read stories about stolen innocence and shattered families.

 

The world has turned and lurked into a future, in some ways, very different from the distant days of Micah.  But not different enough…or maybe just not different in the most important ways.  Because his prayer still assaults the heavens.  Our petitions for peace and security are still prayed as desperately as ever.  Because our world is still plagued with war; still stained with violence.  Our children are still not safe – not while bombs explode hospitals and guns haunt our schools. 

 

As we approach this Christmas season, a season just days away, we are also confronted with the fact that shadows linger even over the manger.  Jesus is born but into a world that is not safe.  Herod responds to the miracle of the Incarnation with murder.  The Holy Family escapes Herod.  But the Prince of Peace spends his short life on this planet being constantly stalked by violence – from Christmas through Good Friday.

 

But then Easter.  And with it the hope that animates this Advent season.  That God has an answer to violence and death, one that will silence the sounds of war and allow space in the universe for laughter. 

 

The hope is what folds our trembling hands into a posture of prayer.  Hope is what brought dreams to life in the heart of a traumatized prophet.  Hope is what gave Micah the courage to speak peace in a time of war, to promise security in a day of devastation.

 

The world carries still its brokenness.  And we pray for peace.  Not because we see the evidence of its victory but because we are the heirs of its promise.

 

As he did in the Advent Mary, the Prince of Peace lives also in us; we carry Jesus in our hearts.  And in us, he still witnesses this world of violence.  And it grieves his heart that a people created to love decide to hate and hurt. 

 

But in this season we are reminded that Jesus is the promise of a better world; his Kingdom is coming; and in the fullness of time, our longing for a world without pain or sorrow will find its fulfillment.

 

But while we wait, we dream.  And we offer our lives as a prayer.  We are children of the Prince of Peace.  And so it is up to us to plant seeds of peace in the midst of so much violence, to plant seeds of peace until something beautiful takes root.  It is up to us to dare to dream a better world into existence, to dream against the nightmares of this age.  Peace is a not a luxury; it is not a fantasy.  It is our future – and we should be satisfied with nothing less.