Excerpted from 2025 Advent Guide: Lighting the Way Forward, an Advent Guide for Lectionary Year A from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Isaiah 2:1-5
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
neither shall they learn war any more.
O house of Jacob,
come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!
The prophets speak to a people living in violence and uncertainty, yet daring to hope for peace. Isaiah dares to hope for swords hammered into plowshares, spears reshaped into pruning hooks, and cities once scarred by conflict becoming gardens of life.
That same vision speaks to us today in direct contradiction to the rhetoric of empire. Empire offers us leaders who speak of an “enemy within,” turning neighbor against neighbor. They portray our inner cities as battlegrounds and our communities as training grounds for war. This is more than political rhetoric; it is a spiritual distortion. It perverts God’s call and instead of unlearning war, it teaches suspicion.
God’s call during Advent is the antidote to empire. Where the empire tells us to arm ourselves, Advent invites us to disarm. Where empire’s leaders point to enemies, Advent calls us to see neighbors. Where fear whispers “protect what’s yours,” God’s Spirit urges, “share what you have.”
Advent peace isn’t naïve or sentimental. It’s not pretending the world isn’t broken. Peace is the courage to live differently in a world that wants us to be afraid. It is choosing connection over isolation, compassion over cynicism, gentleness over control.
Isaiah’s words still echo:
“Neighbors shall not lift up sword against neighbor,
neither shall they learn war anymore.”
We must ask, what might Isaiah’s vision look like in our time? It might look like guns melted into playgrounds, prisons turned into schools, military budgets redirected to healthcare
It might also look like smaller acts of peace: a table where those who disagree sit down and listen to one another, a community that refuses to demonize the poor or the refugee, a church that creates belonging for the anxious, the grieving, and the weary.
Peace is not the absence of violence — it is the presence of love. It is allowing ourselves to see God’s vision, even when it seems impossible. The impossible begins wherever we are willing to lay down our swords — the swords of our words, our defensiveness, our self-protection — and pick up the tools that tend to life: kindness, empathy, and hope.
This Advent, may we dare to imagine God’s world made new.
