With Advent here again and Christmas just around the corner, I have been listening to Handel's Messiah, and the following words from it (from Isaiah 40:1-5) have gained new meaning for me:

   Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
 
  The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

   Isaiah speaks of comfort?not fear?and given the frightening times we live in, his words have much to say to us today. When we wake in the morning, we never know what new natural disaster has struck, or what new terrorist act has injured and killed innocent civilians.

   New calamities are occurring in such rapid succession that they threaten to numb our minds and souls. The many deaths that take place every day all too easily become statistics buried in the subconscious.

   This is understandable: nobody can truly absorb the news of so many tragedies without having his or her soul scarred and hardened, and losing the God-given gift of compassion for the suffering of others.

   In Iraq, more than 2,100 G.I.s have been killed in the ongoing fighting, and close to 20,000 more have been wounded. Fear and grief and, worst of all, a feeling of loneliness, must affect every one of their families. Indeed, the future looks grim for many.

    So should we despair? We cannot. Instead, we must recognize that fear and isolation are weapons Satan uses to try to destroy human community, and we must fight back. We must not allow him to wipe out the hope and optimism still left in our hearts. In this fight, the words of Isaiah can give us strength and comfort.

   Throughout history, plenty of people have gone through dark times. In the 1930s, for instance, National Socialism spread its tentacles first over Germany and then over all of Europe. Anyone who spoke out against it disappeared (mostly into concentration camps) overnight.  In the end, as we know, more than six million Jews, and many other innocent victims, were exterminated. On the other hand, there have always been those who stood up to the forces of evil, and they can give us courage today.

    My grandfather, an outspoken critic of the National Socialists long before they took over Germany, was one of the first religious leaders in the country to openly name the dark powers they served. On receiving news, in January 1933, that President von Hindenburg had named Hitler as Reichskanzler, he again left no doubt as to his position: "Hitler as chancellor? The President has no idea what demons he is unleashing!"

   After that he continued to speak out all the more boldly and courageously, calling on other Christians to unite and withstand the evil powers of Nazism together. This did not make him any friends. On the contrary, people distanced themselves from him, and he soon found himself a lone voice crying in the wilderness.

    My grandfather's primary focus was never  condemning the government he opposed. Instead, he threw his energies into helping people to hang onto hope, and onto the belief that God's glory can be revealed even in the darkest times and places.
 
   On one occasion he said that if we find ourselves surrounded by enemies of true faith, that is precisely when we should employ the sacrament of forgiveness. He spoke of the need for community, too:

People that feel the same have to band together and give one another mutual support. That is the only way to combat the furious hatred of the powers that be. If we truly love Christ, we will meet such dark forces with free hearts; with peace, brotherliness, and forgiveness. Only then will these forces, and the people who serve them, be overcome. The worst enemies of freedom and democracy are just the people we ought to love in a special way, in the sense that we find faith and understanding for them.... 
 

   Jesus himself asks us to do the same: "Love your enemies... and pray for those that persecute you." He also tells us to forgive seventy times seven. Oddly, many who call themselves followers of Jesus seem to feel that this advice is too simple for the complex times we live in. Perhaps they see Jesus's words as a threat?I don't know....
 

    A few months before my grandfather died, he shared a dream he had about Hitler. It is a remarkable dream in that it reflects the thought that even the worst enemy can be transformed into a friend?providing we have faith in Jesus's words to his disciples, as mentioned above. I have read my grandfather's account of this dream many times, but was only recently struck by how timely it is:

Last night Hitler appeared to me in a dream. He was trying to draw over a picture I had painted with different colors and he said he could do it better. Then he sat down and I said, "My dear Adolf, this cannot continue much longer, you yourself cannot even be enjoying this killing any more." Then he asked me what I thought about war. I answered, "We must hold firmly to conscientious objection, for killing is against love in every case."  At this he pulled a very angry face.
 
   The nice thing about the dream was that I had a heart-to-heart talk with him.  I was not the least bit afraid. And perhaps one day this dream will be fulfilled. For it must be our concern that our love to our enemies finds such expression that it truly reaches their hearts. For that is what love is. And if we reach the heart we will find there the hidden spark from God, even if it lies within the greatest criminal.

   It is in this sense that forgiveness has to come to power for our enemies, just as Jesus prayed for the soldiers who nailed him to the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." This is just as true today as it was then: the evildoers know not what they do.

   Presidents and other world leaders might want to take heed of the words of Isaiah, and of my grandfather's dream. Both carry the same message: that our hearts have to change, so that crooked ways become straight and rough places plain.

    It is in our hearts that every valley must be exalted, and every mountain of pride and arrogance made low. Then all violence and warfare will cease and the coming of God's kingdom will reconcile everyone and everything. All death and disease will be overcome. Jesus will be lifted up, and all people will be drawn to him, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed. This is the message of Advent.