Our readings this week are: Isaiah 2.1–5 and Matthew 24.36–44.

‘In days to come’ are (almost) the opening words of the passage from Isaiah this week. I think they are magical words just by themselves. In a world that is consistently uncertain, just being reminded that there will be a tomorrow is no bad thing!

The poetry of Isaiah moves beyond the mundane, elevating it to an epic tone (try reading this passage in your best ‘movie trailer’ voice – it really adds to it!). And the vision these words contain deserves it – it isn’t just one of survival, but one of triumph almost beyond imagining – a vision of a future perfection in which war has ceased, and all peoples find themselves united in the worship of God. It can be tempting to think of the Old Testament as a library full of just violence and warfare, and the god presented in it as somehow distinct from the God of love we meet in the New. Passages like this one, though, highlight for me the continuity – peace, restoration, reconciliation ‘in days to come’ has always been a part of God’s intention for his creation. I can admit, though, that the punctuations of peace can make the violence abounding around them all the more puzzling. If God’s intention has always been peace, why have his people through the ages seemed to have credited him with such a bloodthirsty nature? A God willing to wipe away nearly the whole of creation in a flood; or willing to ask a father to sacrifice his only son; or willing to perpetrate mass infanticide (amongst other atrocities) against the nation of Egypt… can this really be the same God who will be born into poverty in a stable, suffer and die ‘meekly’ on a cross, and then go on to beat swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks? I would be lying if I presented any easy answer to this question. I don’t think we can handwave over these atrocities and explain them away as fables from a distant past (even if some of them may well be artistic or mythic creations) – our own current newspapers remind us that violence and destruction attributed to God is still very much a part of the world, and rob us of that option. It is also difficult to entirely absolve him of all guilt in these stories as told – if we stick with the example of the plagues of Egypt, for instance, we find time and again God ‘hardening’ Pharaoh’s heart into rebellion as justification for heinous crimes against a people. I do wonder, though, if there might be some light shed here from reflecting on the literary traditions themselves. Broadly speaking, it seems to me that when God speaks directly in the prophetic books, he overwhelmingly calls his people to repentance, justice, mercy, and peace (though not always!). In contrast, in the historical books, when Israel recounts her national history, the narratives often interpret military events as God’s doing. In a sense that’s an inevitable conclusion – as has been observed (to paraphrase), God can only bless the violent, destructive, and bloodthirsty – because there is no one else left; and history is written by the victors! When we look at history with the national scribes we see a bloody mess, with God at the centre of it; when we look to the future with the prophets we see perfect reconciliation, with God at the centre of it. To deny the tension would be disingenuous; to try and unpick the puzzle of responsibility (ours, God’s, or even Satan’s if you want to go there) a distraction – I believe what we have here is a genuine mystery, in the sense of a sacrament. One we remember every time we break bread and drink wine – somehow God has entered into the mess, and through being present has sanctified it; and through dying amidst it (taking responsibility for it?) has reconciled it all to himself, such that it shines clean, and whole, and perfect ‘in days to come’. I think that for the moment, perhaps, the important question is which direction we choose to look – backwards or forwards; do we want to be a people driven by the bloody mess of history, or a people drawn by the brighter light of a new dawn? Advent is perhaps the perfect season for that question; and it suggests an answer – look to the light, begin to count again the days to the unknown hour of the coming of the Son of Man; live in a way that reflects the future to come, so that when it arrives it finds you ready.