“What do you want for Christmas?”

People close to me are already asking and, well, I don’t mean to sound like a Scrooge or the Grinch, but that is my least favorite question at this time of year.

“What do you want for Christmas?”

It’s my least favorite question because the truth is, I don’t know.

I have no good answers because, on the material level, I want for nothing. I don’t need another sweater or pair of earrings. I have enough shoes, knick knacks, and gadgets,

Which is not to say that I’m perfectly content, because I’m not. Not at all.

I still want and want badly. Some days I want so much it hurts.

But what I want, what I need, what I truly long for, cannot be bought, sold, boxed, or wrapped.

Because what I want… honestly…is more time.

What I want is more energy.

What I want is more love, more joy, more ….peace…peace within me…peace around me.

But Christmas, for all its promises, is no guarantee of that.

In fact, for many of us, Christmas has become the opposite of that.

So I guess if there is one thing I really want for Christmas this year, it would be for that to change.

I mean, I don’t know about you, but the season has barely begun and I am tired… already.

I am tired and I want to be less tired.

I am sad and I want to be less sad.

I am rushed and angry and overwhelmed, and I want to be less rushed and angry and overwhelmed.

I am already at odds with much of my family and something like 43% of my country,

when what I want is to be at peace with them all, at peace with my sisters and brothers, at peace with my neighbors, at peace with my enemies.

I want peace.

Peace in my heart and peace in my home.

Peace across this country and heck, while we’re at it, why not peace on earth too.

I want the peace Isaiah sings of, the peace that was promised, the peace the Christ Child brings.

I want peace.

And you know what? It’s good to know what you really want even if you have no idea how to get it. It is good to say it out loud even as you wonder if it is even possible.

It is good to cut through the crap, the materialism, all the distraction of this festive holiday season, straight to the heart of the matter, because the truth is until we have peace nothing else will suffice. Until we have peace nothing we have is secure. Until we have peace everything we love can be taken away.

Without peace we will always be wanting, because peace in the biblical sense - shalom - is not merely the absence of conflict but a true and lasting sense of security. Shalom means wholeness, completeness, perfection. To know this peace is not just to want for nothing but to know that no one is coming to take the good things you have because everyone around you is as content and cared for as you.

It is to rest secure beneath your fig tree because the wolves have all lain down, rest secure because the swords have all been beaten into plowshares, rest secure because we have all replaced warfare with mutual care in a new world “filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the seas.”

A world at peace would be a world where no one has to worry or hoard or hustle because all are fed, all are safe, all are well.

Imagine a world like that….or even just a Christmas like that.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Yeah, I think that is what we really want, what we truly long for, what we dare, even now, to hope for and getting clear about that matters.

Friends, it is good to know what you want, because what you hope for has the power to shape you even as you have the power to shape the world around you. What you hope for matters. As a Christian, I hope for a better world, a healed world, a world made whole for the sake of us all.

But not all Christians do…and it shows.

Ironically, these verses from Matthew about two being in the field or grinding meal and one being taken and one being left behind have been used to develop a flawed and destructive theology of the end times that has done tremendous damage to us all.

This heresy has led many Christians to believe they can predict a day when all the faithful will be swept up to heaven and everyone left behind will be judged and destroyed along with the earth.

This is an unfortunate hope for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it leads many Christians to view not just our planet but our fellow human beings as disposable.

Far too many people have come to believe that if our stay here is only temporary than it doesn’t make sense to protect the environment or work for social justice, negotiate toward nuclear disarmament or even work toward better relations with our enemies, because God’s just going to scrap it all anyway.

Your job, if this is your hope, is simply to get saved by saving the right prayer, and then patiently wait for God to come rescue you, the rest of us be damned. Many Christians have been led to believe in this pernicious theology of the end times and it is not just shaping our world for the worse but warping the ability of far too many Christians to care about the fate of anyone but themselves.

Which is unfortunate given that this is the exact opposite of what Jesus taught. Jesus could not be more clear when he says that no one, not even he himself, knows the day or the hour when He will return once and for all. All we know is that it will be like the days of Noah.

Now think for a moment about those days. Was it the good righteous ones who were swept away in that story? No, it was the righteous ones who were preserved. Noah and his family, along with the animals they had brought on to the ark, were the lucky ones. Noah and his family were the ones left behind to start again. Not only that, God was so appalled at the destruction the flood wrought that God actually repented and promised never to wipe things out like that ever again.

Instead, God made a covenant with a small tribe of people, the Israelites, and promised to work with them and through them to eventually bring all of the nations together in peace and make all things new.

With that hope in mind - God’s hope for peace on earth and peace amongst all of God’s people - I would think we ought to care for the earth and each other all the more and be awake to all the ways God comes to help us bring God’s hope to fruition.

However, the flood was over in a flash. This new plan will take time. Which may be why the two words for hope in the Hebrew Bible - Yakal and qavah - are closely linked to the word “wait” (Bible Project https://bibleproject.com/videos/yakhal-hope/).

In Genesis, Noah yakhals for the flood waters to recede. He hopes and he waits.

In Isaiah, God plants a vineyard and qavahs, for the vines to bear fruit. God hopes and God waits.

In the psalms the soul hopes and the souls waits “more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning” (Psalm 130:6).

Notice there is nothing passive about this hope or this waiting. It is full of watching and planting and preparing. To hope in the Hebrew Bible is to wait with patient expectation, to actively long for the fulfillment of something you deeply desire, and to be fully invested in the outcome.

It is the longing of an expectant parent waiting to see the face of their child.

It is the anxious anticipation of a director who trusts it will all come together by opening night.

It is the loving vision of a knitter as she casts on the first stitch of a sweater that will one day grace the form of someone she loves.

In fact the word qavah comes from the same word as cord, implying a tension between what is and what can be.

To live in hope is to live and work in that tension: meaning we do our part to bring that hope to fruition even as we wait and watch for the places God breaks through to do what only God can.

Which is to say that peacemaking, creating peace within and without, is slow, patient work. In all fairness to those other Christians and pretty much everybody else at Christmas time, it’s why the temptation to skip to the end or pray or buy our way out of all this is so tempting.

But I can tell you right now that the peace you seek will not be found at the bottom of your to-do list - because that list never ends - or even at the bottom of your Christmas list.

You’re not going to find peace at Target or Amazon, and we all have the receipts to prove it.

Nor will we find it by defeating, disappearing, or - God forbid - deporting anyone.

No. If what we really want for Christmas is peace for all - for everyone to be able to rest safe and secure within and without - than our job is to make peace even as we wait for the prince of peace.

We can’t force this and I know it just keeps getting harder, but while we wait we do our best to not give up on each other, to stay in relationship with each other, to reason, repent and reconcile with each other.

While we wait for the great feast, we share what we have with each other, we take of care each other, and we keep watch over each other such that no one gets taken away and no one gets left behind.

While we wait we allow our hope in God’s hope to shape us, our lives, our actions.

And when we do, we find that a curious thing happens.

The more we invest in the peace of others, ensuring that they have what they need to feel safe and secure, the more peace we find in and around us.

And, ironically, the more we see Christ in each other, the more of Christ we see all around us.

I say, ironically, because though we may not know the day or hour of Christ’s ultimate return, that doesn’t mean we don’t know exactly where to look for him, even now.

In the very next chapter Jesus ends this little sermon with the parable of the sheep and the goats in which he lets everyone know the best kept open secret in all of history. He lets us know that as we care for the least, the lost and the lonely, the sick, the imprisoned and the hungry, the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, and the refugee, we are caring for no one less than him.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least of these …you did for me.”

It turns out that in serving Christ, we will find our Christ. In making peace we will find our peace

- that deep peace we all long for, but at this time of year, long for most of all -

because the peace we want for ourselves can only be born out of a peace we cultivate for the sake of all.

May this peace be born in you and me this Advent, born to set all people free.  Amen.