When Peace and Time Dance | Advent Devotional Day 17

Advent 2025 DevotionalCore | Peace
December 16, 2025
Written by Emily Paino-Brenneman

Title: When Peace and Time Dance

Scripture:


My Reflection

I imagine the encouragement and excitement these words were meant to be to the people of Israel. The promise for restoration and justice. Then I wonder if these words fell on the ears of that time like so many of us experience them now. A collective “when?” we sigh. 

I recently heard a conversation on time trying to explain to me that it is more than linear, and I wonder how God in their infinite space experiences it. Abolitionist minister Theodore Parker’s words on time were adjusted and made famous by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. when he said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice”.  These words in Isaiah 35:3-4 remind me of this idea.  Just as Jesus arrived in a world that needed him, peace for this world will also arrive.  “Be strong!  Don’t fear!” Bottom line, don’t panic. 

While I do not have a firm grip on non-linear time, I try to imagine the dance of time over history.  It seems to me that peace and time are dancing and touching the world.  It happened on Christmas.

My Prayer:

Reflection Question:

• How have you seen God bend justice throughout the history of the world? And your own time?

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