Hope and the Longing for Peace
A Note from Mark Roberts
Dear Life for Leaders Reader,
Today is Giving Tuesday. I imagine you know it’s a day when many charitable organizations make a special “end of year” ask for financial support. If you’ve been receiving Life for Leaders for a while you’ll remember we also invite our readers to support Life for Leaders as part of the vital work of the De Pree Center.
As our Executive Director Michaela O’Donnell wrote in today’s Giving Tuesday note, “[In 2024] individuals like you stepped up and chipped in! $25 here, $250 there. Sometimes the gifts came from the most surprising places and each donation felt like a little miracle. Last year, these little miracles culminated in over 100 individuals supporting the work of De Pree Center!”
I’ll get to the “ask” part in a minute, but first I want to thank you for being a subscriber to Life for Leaders and a member of the growing De Pree Center community. We are glad to be able to provide thoughtful, biblically-based devotions to our more than 10,000 subscribers and thousands more who access Life for Leaders via our website. Plus, thank you for your kind notes, faithful prayers, and generous financial gifts.
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We know that you support a variety of worthy ministries and causes, including other efforts of Fuller Seminary. That’s great! But we would ask you to consider making a special “end of year” gift to the De Pree Center for Life for Leaders.
Grace and Peace,
Mark Roberts
Scripture — Psalm 122:6-9 (NRSV)
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you.
Peace be within your walls
and security within your towers.”
For the sake of my relatives and friends
I will say, “Peace be within you.”
For the sake of the house of the Lord our God,
I will seek your good.
Focus
Advent is a season of longing and hope. One of the things we long for is peace. In our prayers of hope-filled lament, we bring that longing to the Prince of Peace in whom rests all of our hopes. And as we long for peace, so also we are called to live in a way that fosters peace.
Devotion
Lately, I’ve been thinking a great deal about lament, and about longing, which is an important component of Biblical lament. I’ve also been thinking about hope and peace.
Lament, at its core, is bringing our sorrow and suffering to God. Lament can be a personal act or a congregational one. (A healthy Christian life has aspects of both.) We can bring to God sorrow over our own suffering, over the suffering of others, or over our sin and the harm it causes. Lament is fundamentally an act of faith and hope. We lament because we believe that God hears us (even though at times it seems we are speaking to the silence), and that God cares, is good, and has the power to act (even though God often does not act according to our expressed desires). Thus, Mark Vroegop, in his book _Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament, _wisely notes, “To cry is human, but to lament is Christian.”
Now, for some readers, lament might seem an unusual topic for an Advent devotion. But it shouldn’t be. More than a third of the psalms are psalms of lament, and those who wisely spend time immersed in these lament psalms know that longing is an important part of them. We long for a day when suffering is over. We cry, “How long, O Lord? How long?”
And even as longing is a central aspect of lament, it is also a central theme of Advent. During Advent, we sing and pray words of longing: “Come, thou long expected Jesus.” The opening verse of that famous Charles Wesley hymn expresses a longing for release from fear and sin, and a plea for freedom and rest. We pray for these things because we need them, and because they are so often lacking in this world. And in doing so, our hearts cry out—even if our voices don’t explicitly state the words—How long, O Lord? When will you return? Perhaps this is why the last line of the opening verse reminds us that Jesus is the “joy of every _longing _heart.”
One of the things I most long for is peace. Peace is far more than an absence of violence. True peace comes from being in right relationship with God, and with each other. Indeed, that might be said to be the very definition of peace, with war and violence being at the opposite extreme. And right now the world is full of war, and of the suffering that results from it. When my wife and I pray for places in the world where people are suffering and dying from violence, the list is long. Ukraine. Gaza. Myanmar. Somalia. Many communities in our own country. We could go on.
In this context, I read Psalm 122, attributed to David. A “Song of Ascents,” it was written for pilgrims to Jerusalem. Beyond that, however, I don’t know much about when and under what circumstances the psalm was written. But we do know that David’s lifetime was dominated by war. In his youth, David and his people suffered from oppression and continued military conflict with the Philistines. They were rarely free from war with surrounding nations. And the internal conflict within Israel might have been even worse, as David suffered persecution and violent oppression from Saul, and later armed conflict even within his own family.
Out of this experience comes this moving three-part prayer for the peace of Jerusalem that we read in verses 6-8 – a passage that follows an opening that speaks of the delight of worship. David not only shares a prayer for peace, but he commands his hearers to join in that prayer. David understood the suffering that comes when there is no peace. As v.8 illustrates, he knows (from his own life experiences) the suffering experienced by “relatives and friends” when peace is lacking. Whatever his present situation was, David surely had a deep longing for lasting peace. That he responds by calling his people to pray for peace shows that he understood the one true source of real peace.
And then, in the final verse, David takes one more step, saying “For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.” This active seeking of good is, I believe, a call to let our prayers for peace turn into practices that result in peace—and to do so as an act of worship for the sake of God.
Christians today should also long for peace. We should pray for peace. And then, in hope, even as we pray “your kingdom come, your will be done,” we should seek to live in a way that fosters peace for the glory of God’s name.
Reflect
What do you long for? How do you express that longing in prayer? Do you view lament as an act of hope—or perhaps of hopelessness?
In what ways does your life foster peace? Are there ways that your words, acts, or practices might hinder peace?
Act
As an advent practice, take time this week to pray through some psalm of longing, such as Psalm 10, 13, or 42. (There are many others.) If you struggle with hope, ask God to give you hope even as you lament.
Pray
Lord of Hope and Peace, I lift my prayer up to you this day. There is so much violence in the world, and so many are suffering, that it often feels like you are far away and silent. How long must we wait, Lord, until you return and establish your lasting kingdom of peace? Come, thou long expected Jesus, joy of every longing heart. And I do have a longing heart. And until the day you return, be with those suffering from violence this day, and help me to live in a way that fosters peace. Amen.
Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the High Calling archive, hosted by the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem.
Matthew Dickerson
Author
Matthew Dickerson’s books include works of spiritual theology and Christian apologetics as well as historical fiction, fantasy literature, explorations of the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and books about trout fishing, fly fishing, rivers, and ecology. His recent book,