Horizon of Change
For I am about to create a new heaven and a new earth. -Isaiah 65:17
Three candles are burning around a wreath. Outside, the clouds are gray and a light rain falls. Inside, music plays in the background and my mind is taken back to the first time I saw an Advent wreath.
I was a child. We had our Christmas tree beside the fireplace and on a table, an Advent wreath. I was familiar with the Christmas tree. That is where the ornaments and presents went.
But the Advent wreath spoke of something different: a discipline, a pondering and a mystery that could not easily be reduced to cliche. It is difficult to commercialize Advent because it expects something from us. Christmas is a gift, but Advent is a summons.
It asks us what we believe. As the prophet Isaiah conveys, can we conceive of a world made new? Can we conceive of a world without war? Can we conceive of a world where citizens of nations work together for the greater good? This poet can because he knows belief is where progress begins.
Eugene Peterson once observed that what we believe about the “future” shapes the way we live in the “present.” I have been training for a marathon under the belief that I can run 26.2 miles. As a result, I work toward that belief by adhering to a daily regimen of training in the present.
One reads a good book or makes a pilgrimage toward a favorite destination under the same principles. You set the future goal and spend the present hours chipping away at that goal. In fact, sometimes such discipline doesn’t even feel like work. It can be a form of joy.
Lastly, don’t go for looking Advent in your Bibles. It’s not there! It’s an occasion cherished by the church to recall ways in which light shines in darkness to make a place for God’s new heaven and earth. It is this summons to newness that is ever and always on the horizon of change.
