“There is no Yuletide sentimentality in Advent. Peace will not come by wishing for it. Peace will not come by imagining it. Peace will not come by God waving a magic wand over it. No, peace will come by God wielding a scepter—and a sword. Peace will come only in the drastic rearranging of the deranged, and if that sounds violent, it is. [. . .] God’s justice will arrive like a hurricane. We cannot possibly disperse the choking murk of the accumulated smog of millennia of sin—our own and others’. We cannot venture a single step in confidence, given our moral blindness and a world system we simply cannot trust for justice. But God can blow the miasma away and leave only fresh air. God can roll back the clouds and let the sunshine in. And he will do so upon his own people for the benefit of all people.”
– John Stackhouse
The Advent Project 