Praying for peace in a time of war — ideas for
family worship in Advent

The season of Advent offers families rich opportunities for worshiping together. Many families mark the time by reading scripture, lighting candles on an Advent wreath, praying and singing together. We practice waiting during Advent. We wait not just for the anniversary of the birth
of a baby long, long ago, but for the dawning of a new age. When Christ comes again, the whole world will be reborn to God’s reign of peace and justice and love — that is what we pray for during Advent.

Those prayers become even more pointed in a time of war. The Book of Common Worship suggests scripture readings to accompany the lighting of Advent candles one quickly notes that these eadings point us to peace. They renew our hope and remind us that peace is not just a dream, it is a promise: God’s reign will indeed come.

As families gather around Advent wreaths at home, these texts from scripture lead quite naturally to prayers of peace. The images in the passages are vivid — swords becoming plows, lions and lambs dwelling together, luscious life springing forth in the dry desert. Parents and
children might imagine together some contemporary ones. Older children might think of assault weapons becoming irrigation systems, members of rival gangs planting gardens together, green places erupting in the
midst of the urban landscape. Younger children might imagine a world where there was no fighting between friends and no crying after skinning knees on the playground. These images might be expressed in prayers
that families write together — as they remember God’s promises, call to mind those people they know whose lives are wounded by violence, and thank God for the promise and vision of peace that will come.

Those prayers might also take the form of art. In her article “Art as Prayer,” Liz Barrington Forney describes how working with clay or paint or sidewalk chalk can bring forth a different, and full, expression of prayer. She recalls her days on the staff of a seminary when she and a
number of students gathered outside to pray for peace when the United States first invaded Iraq. They sat and they prayed, and after a few days, she says, “sitting with candles and scripture did not seem sufficient. So we brought out the sidewalk chalk. We wrote our prayers in giant letters. We drew images of sorrow and of hope ... As we did so we found ourselves praying ...”¹

A family might also adopt a song of peace to sing at each lighting of the Advent candles. “O-So-So/Come Now, O Prince of Peace,” a simple and beautiful song written by Korean composer Geonyong Lee enables us to sing to God our plea for peace:

Come now, O Prince of peace: make us one body.
Come, O Lord Jesus; reconcile your people.

Come now, O God of love, make us one body.
Come, O Lord Jesus; reconcile your people.

Come now and set us free, O God our Savior.
Come, O Lord Jesus; reconcile all nations.

Come, Hope of unity; make us one body.
Come, O Lord Jesus; reconcile all nations.²

Through our words, our songs, and the works of our hands, we pray for peace as we await the coming of the Prince of Peace, crying Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus! Other songs that are specific to the season of Advent
can be found in the lectionary aids for the Sundays in Advent, provided in Call to Worship: Liturgy, Music, Preaching & the Arts, 41.1 (Year A, 2007–2008).

Notes
1. Liz Barrington Forney, “Art as Prayer,” Call to Worship 40.3 (2007), 25.
2. “O-So-So / Come Now, O Prince of Peace,” Text and music: Geonyong Lee (b. 1947); para. Marion Pope (b. 1928), in Sing! A New Creation (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 2001), 209; see also Sing the Faith (Louisville: Geneva Press, 2003), 2232.