NOTES for Isa 2:3

All people's hopes in themselves and in other people are in vain... Only when the word of the Lord reaches people, when the Lord Himself reigns, when all nations believe and call upon His name—only then will there be true light and genuine peace on earth.

The texts for the first Sunday of Advent call us first of all to watchfulness. Not only because we cannot determine the moment when a child will be born. But also because our expectation of seeing Jesus now must be like what parents feel when they have already been waiting eight months for the birth of a child. There is no patience left at all: when at last will we be able to see, to know who this is, what He is like? Life is about to change at any minute, and there are too many of those minutes.

The changes in our life that Jesus gives us are immeasurably greater. He will come to us as a newborn infant, who cannot speak and who will not get anywhere unless we carry Him. In the time left to us before His birth, we must accustom ourselves to the thought that, like any little child, Jesus means cares, constant anxieties, and watchfulness at any time of day or night.

Is He well with us? Is He warm? Will we teach Him to smile? And will we unlearn how to wage war when He appears in our life?

"The strong shall become tow, and his work a spark; and they shall both burn together, and no one shall quench them." Following the path after the Lord means following the path of humility and humiliation, of making oneself small before the whole world. In each of us there is a secret and heavy striving for perfection and victory. At times it is not even clear over what. And we multiply envy and quarrels, trying to find our own path before people.

We want to occupy a higher position, receive more pleasure, and so on. This is like constant hunger. And in trying to satisfy ourselves, to indulge our desires, we condemn ourselves to death. Death from endless exhaustion, from emptiness, and in the loneliness of the heart. And the more stubbornly we persist on our path toward victories and achievements for our own sake, the more God resists us, because He knows that our works are vain and useless if through our labor we are not seeking His presence in the world. If we are not seeking peace and are not softening our heart for His sake. "For out of Zion shall go forth the law." The law of eternal life and peace.