“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!” (Isaiah 2:4-5)
During Advent, we wait for God to break in and do new work in our lives and in the world around us. We wait for things to be made right. Advent is not a sentimental season. It is a season of raw hope, stubborn waiting, and holy disruption — challenging us to see beyond our current cultural obsession with domination and instead to place our trust in God’s Spirit working in and through us.
The Christian life is marked by waiting, because so much of life itself is spent waiting. We wait for loved ones to return home. We wait for news from the doctor. We wait for bank accounts to recover.
Jesus waited in Gethsemane, asking if the cup might be taken from him. The disciples waited, convinced he would overthrow the empire. The Israelites waited for the promised land. The story of God is filled to the brim with those who suffer while they wait.
And right now, in a moment of rampant nationalism cloaked in religious language, we wait for God to make things right. We wait for the proud to be brought low, for corruption to meet justice, for the powerful to be unseated from the thrones they have built in God’s name.
Christian Nationalism promises certainty. It uses domination, nostalgia, and control. It confuses God with unwavering loyalty to a political agenda and replaces the gospel with political partisanship.
The First Family’s annual ornament, the American flag, decorates a tree at the White House on Dec. 2, 2019. (Alex Brandon/Associated Press)
But Advent tells a different story. Not of earthly conquest but of human vulnerability. Not of coercive power but of a baby laid in a feeding trough. Not of divine endorsement for earthly kingdoms but of a Savior who says, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Advent invites us into the embodiment of Isaiah 2, where weapons designed to kill and maim are turned into tools for cultivating food to share at tables. Advent is an upside-down invitation to an out-of-control world.
Advent proclaims that God does not arrive on the back of empire cloaked in Christian Nationalism but crying in the arms of a poor mother. God does not coerce allegiance but invites relationship. God does not seize power but releases it for the sake of others. In Jesus, we see a kingdom that grows not through force but through moving toward those in need.
May those who seek to bend God toward their own ideology instead run headlong into the disarming, transforming love of Jesus Christ. And in our waiting, may we hear God’s quiet, steady whisper: “I am with you.”
Rev. Dr. David Rice is an ordained American Baptist pastor and serves as the Digital Strategist for BJC and Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
NOTE: This is part of our Unsettling Advent devotionals running Nov. 30-Dec. 24. You can subscribe for free and receive them each morning in your inbox.
