If you were to travel to the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, you’d find a fascinating statue near the north end of the Rose Garden there. It’s the work of a sculptor named Evgeniy Vuchetich.

The statue is a muscular man, a little over nine feet tall, cast in bronze.

He’s mid-swing, his hammer raised in his right hand. The target of his hammer is the sword he’s holding in his left, bent over itself, the bottom flattened like the blade of a plow. On the side of the pedestal, upon which the statue stands, there’s a single line etched into the stone.

“We shall beat our swords into plowshares.”

The statue was a gift from the Soviet Union to the United Nations in 1959. It was a peace offering – albeit an ironic one – in the midst of the Cold War, from a world power known and feared for the sophistication and immensity of its nuclear arsenal.

The words on the pedestal come from the prophet, Isaiah:

“He shall judge between the nations,
and shall decide disputes for many peoples;
and they shall beat their swords into plowshares…”
-Isaiah 2:4

A world without war or the threat of war. A world where we no longer need swords, or guns, or intercontinental ballistic missiles. A world truly at peace. Can you even imagine that?

Think of the thousands upon thousands of visitors who have walked through that rose garden since 1959, stopped to consider the sculpture of the man with his hammer, read the words etched into the side, and thought to themselves, “Wouldn’t that be nice?” But it never moves beyond wishful thinking.

But these words from Isaiah are more than that.

They have a certain audacity.

In Isaiah’s time, these words spoke into a world where Assyrian Empire was violently conquering the ancient Near East. The threat of warfare and violence was knocking on the nation of Judah’s door.

In 1959, these words resonated in a world that was inching closer and closer to nuclear annihilation.

In our time, these words still resonate – in the midst of school shootings, political violence, the war in Ukraine, the ongoing violence in Israel, the atrocities committed against the people of Gaza, the civil war in Sudan, and so many other violent conflicts happening all around our world.

This isn’t religious optimism or wishful thinking.

Advent doesn’t ask us to pretend the world already knows this peace. It doesn’t ask us to close our eyes to the headlines, or to our own hurt, or to the fractures in our families and communities.

It teaches us to long for a world at peace, a world made right. It teaches us to believe that the God who began this work in Christ Jesus will bring it to completion. Advent puts a holy yearning back into our hearts, a refusal to be satisfied with anything less than the peace God has promised.

And it teaches us to live out this peace right now, not in grand gestures or towering sculptures, but in the very ordinary places of our everyday lives – our homes, our workplaces, our schools, among our neighbors. It teaches us to bless, where the world has taught us to curse. It moves our hands to help instead of harm. And little by little, we beat our swords to plowshares, and the peace of Christ draws nearer to us.

I remember a few years ago, I was cleaning out my home office in Phoenix. We were getting ready to move, and if you’ve moved before, then you know one of the most important steps in the moving process is purging.

You have to get rid of some junk. You don’t need it.

Anyway, I was going through papers, old Bible studies, books I’d read, and I was trying to recycle, chuck, or re-gift as much of it as possible. As I was sorting through the various mountains that had piled up on and around my desk, I saw a little black box. It was in the corner, behind a pile of papers, covered in dust. It’d been sitting there a while.

So, I picked up the box, and as I began to open it, a flood of memories came rushing back. Before I’d even lifted the lid, I knew what was inside…

It was an ornament. Circular, clear glass, with a little blueberry inside.

In the three years I’d had it, it had never hung from my Christmas tree. A lot can happen in three years. See, it was a gift from my mom, to celebrate our first pregnancy. When she gave us the ornament, our little one was – as you might have guessed – a little bigger than a blueberry.

We lost the baby a few weeks later.

I opened that little box and there it was, the top had broken, glass was scattered throughout, but there inside was that little blueberry.

As I stood there, looking at that broken little ornament, I tried to remember what it had felt like – all that sadness, all the grief, all the fear we felt in the weeks and months after that. I remembered all the questions I asked God that He never answered. I remembered how hopeless we felt.

All we could see was a broken ornament, a brutal reminder of what we’d lost.

“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.”
-Isaiah 11:1

A shoot from a stump. The image is striking. It’s defiant hope. Life in a place you’d never expect it; good news where there had only been dead ends. That’s God’s specialty.

Advent is all about hope in the unlikeliest of places. It’s new life shooting out from the stump of a seemingly dead tree. It’s a baby’s cry from a manger in Bethlehem. It’s a lived out hope, in each of us. It’s defiant hope – an interruption in the midst of our despair and hopelessness.

I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at that little ornament.

I just remember hearing Josie’s little voice say, “Daddy!”

[Bear with me on this one. I promise it’s not as offensive as it seems.]

You ever taken a cheesy family photo?

They tend to happen during the holiday season, or they go out with your family’s Christmas card.

You know, the kinds of photos where everyone is matching for some reason? Because if they weren’t wearing exactly the same thing, how could you possibly tell that everyone in the photo is related to each other?

Seriously, what compels us to take these photos?

If you are taking photos, with a group of people, and you’re paying a photographer to take these photos, I’m going to just assume you’re all related. And if you’re doing that with people who aren’t your family, you’re even weirder than the people dressed in matching outfits.

We took plenty of matching photos in my family when I was a kid, around this time of year. I’m sure we sent them out during the holidays. I remember them all.

One year was matching sweaters, the next year was all black, the year after was Hawaiian-themed (my parents had just gone to Hawaii, so for a few weeks after that trip we – through no fault of our own – were forced to relive that experience). All of them were horrible. All of them were tacky. And yet, all of them are incredible.

Sometimes I’ll wander into my dad’s office, just to look through those old photos.

It took 32 years, but I’ve really developed a soft spot around dumb family Christmas photos. Matching outfits and all. Something about them just makes me happy.

And now that I’ve got two little girls, all I want to do is dress us all up in some tacky outfits and take as many pictures together as we possibly can.

There’s something about this time of year that brings that out in us.

We’ll throw lights on everything that doesn’t move. We’ll buy gigantic inflatable Santas and snowmen to stick in our yards. We’ll wear sweaters with bells and glitter. It’s grotesque. It’s all too much. But somehow, it kind of feels just right.

It’s because Christmas is a season of joy. Unmitigated, unbelievable joy. It’s not quaint. It isn’t cute. It’s big, bold, and it demands to be noticed.

That’s the kind of joy Isaiah is tapping into:

“Arise, shine, your light has come,
And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you…
Then you shall see and be radiant;
Your heart shall thrill and exult.”
-Isaiah 60:1,5

Radiant, thrilling, and exultant joy – that’s what I’m after.

I think everyone could use a little of that. It’s the deep joy that only Christmas can bring. The joy of people who have experienced the Light of the World. And that joy is our calling this season.

So embrace it. Embrace the kind of joy that looks like clashing red and green, gold and silver, cheap tinsel, glitter everywhere, Santa hats and elf costumes. Light that over-priced, nauseatingly pungent “yummy gingerbread” scented candle.

Fill your yard with bright, flashing lights! Buy that giant inflatable snowman! Bake some cookies to bring to your neighbors. Win that crockpot competition at work (I’m the back-to-back champ)! Enjoy the white elephant gift exchanges and the secret Santas.

Wear an ugly sweater, take some tacky photos. Sing loudly to the same five songs that seem to play in every restaurant and store, starting the day after Thanksgiving.

Go ahead and embrace the shameless, gaudy joy of this season – the joy that’s rooted in what God has done for us in Jesus. Celebrate the greatest gift that’s ever been given. Don't keep it to yourself! Let your joy radiate.

I remember when my wife, Summer, lost her cat.

We weren’t married at the time. In fact, we’d really only been dating a couple months. She’d gone off to South Africa to study abroad for a few months and had left her cat in the care of a good friend. Somehow or another, the cat got loose (you know how cats are).

Summer was devastated. She loved this cat, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t go out looking for it, she was thousands of miles away.

And this is when I discovered that I loved Summer. Really, truly loved her in a way that was different from any kind of love I’d ever felt before.

I’ll tell you what gave it away:

See, if someone loses their pet, it’s objectively sad. Naturally, I’d hope they’d find their pet. I like happy endings.

If I’m being honest, I’m not really that emotionally involved in other people’s pets. I’m sure your dog, cat, guinea pig, etc. is the greatest dog, cat, guinea pig, etc. May they all live forever…

But emotional divestment from other people’s pets is a helpful, healthy boundary I’ve set for myself.

And yet, every weekend, after the cat escaped, I’d drive up to Austin – I was living here in San Antonio at the time. I’d scour the neighborhood where the cat had disappeared for hours at a time. I’d knock on doors, asking if anyone had seen him.

I’d go to HEB, buy cans of tuna, packs of butterscotch pudding (her cat’s favorite). I’d crawl under people’s houses, or into drainage ditches, or under people’s porches trying to find him.

I was about halfway under someone’s home, butterscotch pudding in hand, surrounded by spider webs, calling out to a cat that was not there, when I found myself thinking… If I knew what was good for me, I’d pack this up and go home.

I didn’t lose the cat! It really wasn’t my problem!

But I couldn’t do it.

That’s the tricky thing about love. Love has a way of making you act against your own self interests, your better judgment. When you love someone, you’ll do anything for them. You just can’t help yourself.

“For a brief moment I deserted you,
But with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing anger for a moment,
I hid my face from you,
But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you,”
- Isaiah 54:7-8

If God knew what was “good for Him,” He’d have given up on us a while ago. We’re broken, messy, and often more trouble than we’re worth. He certainly doesn’t owe us His compassion. He’s got every right to stay angry. But He just can’t help Himself. He loves us too much.

And His love is the kind of love that doesn’t stay safely detached. It comes looking for us, crawling into the dark places we like to hide. Calling us by name, calling us home.

If there’s anything you should know this Advent season, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s that God loves you.

Christmas is the proof.