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Read: Psalm 85
God will speak peace to his people, to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hears. ~Psalm 85:8
With the lighting of the second candle in the Advent wreath, we hear the Psalmist inviting us to listen for God’s voice. In creation, God speaks reality into being. “And God said” begins each day of that first week with life-giving, creating words. The opening lines of John’s gospel puts a sharper pencil to that reality with a drumroll: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Many of us Advent pilgrims are asking: Where is that living Word? Has God gone silent or worse, become mute? That same feeling seems to be very much in play in this ancient psalm. The lyrics begin with the writer wistfully reflecting on a better time. Words like “favorable,” “fortunes,” forgiveness, and “pardon” almost seem to pine for a golden age now gone. Catching herself at mid-psalm, in mid-sentence, she remembers a promise no doubt learned in younger years. Did you hear it? In the marrow of Psalm 85, the writer offers a promise. “[God] will speak peace to his people.”
This soon-to-come peace is the promised “Shalom” met throughout the Bible. Shalom means “wholeness, integration, centeredness” and so much more. If we listen carefully, even in the noise of busy December days, we may see, even experience a gift. Knowing God spoke the sun into shining, birds to flying; God who is Word become flesh, now speaks Shalom “to those who turn to him in their hearts.”
Here is the gift for you and me and who hustle, often exhausted, through a season that at times seems more riotous than righteous. Listen. Listen, dear ones from the depths of longing hearts and you might hear God speak that ancient, wonderful promise coming to life in you: “I will make you whole, complete, sound, beautiful.” Shalom!
~Tim Owings
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