What's the one thing God desires above all else?
"Justice! Justice you shall pursue," writes the law-giver. In Micah 6:8: "He has shown you, O man, what is good .What does the LORD require of you, but to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"
We think of justice as a social value and righteousness, so it may surprise that the Greek word used in the Christian Scriptures is the same. Translators render it according to context. Is the author talking about a virtue, or about a social value.
God makes no distinction.
Don't be duped into thinking God's desire is for us to be personally virtuous while the world around us goes to hell. Advent is about awaiting the arrival of a king who shelters the vulnerable from the mob who believes that in seeking a death sentence they are doing God's will. Advent is about waiting for a priest who asks a scorned woman for the favor of a drink but who never seeks a conference with the governor.
Advent is about waiting for a troublemaker who is going to be marked an enemy of the people and become another faceless victim of calls for law and order.
Advent is a promise that justice is coming.
"Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."
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