Welcoming the Wolves

Dr. Nicolete Burbach

For the four Sundays of Advent, Bondings 2.0 will present reflections on the Sunday scriptures from writers who represent each of the categories the LGBT spectrum: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. 

Today’s post is from guest contributor Dr. Nicolete Burbach, a theologian whose research aims to help the Church navigate its difficult encounter with transness.

Today’s liturgical readings for the Second Sunday of Advent can be found by clicking here. 

Today’s reading from Isaiah is a puzzling one. It promises that the coming Messiah will bring justice—a stern, retributive justice, but a true one:

“…he shall judge the poor with justice,
and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.
He shall strike the ruthless with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.”

Yet a moment later, the sternness of the imagery is reversed. Historic enemies will live in peace. Predators will be reconciled with prey. The serpent—that old enemy of humanity, cursed to strike at Adam’s heel—will abide with the innocent child.

“Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the young lion shall browse together,
with a little child to guide them.
The cow and the bear shall be neighbors,
together their young shall rest;
the lion shall eat hay like the ox.
The baby shall play by the cobra’s den,
and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair.”

“The Peaceable Kingdom” by Edward Hicks

We may not be comfortable with the harshness of Isaiah’s call for justice. Yet we might also find ourselves uncomfortable with the latter imagery. The wolves are very much abroad today: predatory politics and those who knowingly or unknowingly serve them, imperialist governments flexing their might, and exploitative leaders, along with those too self-interested to oppose them. They hunt widely, preying on the queer community; refugees and other immigrants; poor people and nations; people of color; women; Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities; and all too many others.

In this context, it is hard to hear that the wolves will be our guests. Easier by far to lift up our voices with Isaiah and simply cry out justice “from the River to the ends of the earth”.

Part of what makes it so hard to hear the second part of this reading is that peaceful imagery is often used to discourage fighting for justice. Are we not called to love our enemies? Should we not eat with sinners, and forgive those who wrong us? I am always tempted to reply: it is one thing to eat with sinners, and another to invite a wolf over for dinner.

The point of loving one’s enemies is precisely that they are enemies. This means that any love we may have for them cannot simply take peace for granted. The wolf cannot be the guest of the lamb if the lambs have all been eaten, and make no mistake, the lambs are being eaten right now. It is easier to hear Isaiah’s harsh cry for justice over the crunching of bones and sucking of marrow than it is the baby’s gentle laughter, echoing from the cobra’s lair.

Yet Isaiah reminds us that, although the wolves are circling, knocking at the door, demanding to be let in (solidarity between lambs and little pigs!), we are nevertheless called to imagine a world in which we can greet them joyfully. A world in which the wicked are to be embraced, rather than slain by the harsh Word of the just Judge. Although our persecutors deny us peace today, we are still genuinely called to imagine peace not only for ourselves, but for them tomorrow. And this is a kind of love.

It is important that we do not allow this love for our enemies to be reduced to something cheap. Hoping for a world in which they could be cherished guests does not mean pretending that they can be cherished guests now. Nor does hoping that our persecutors might one day cease to be our enemies mean shortcutting the process needed for this to occur. To hope for peace does not mean ignoring the necessity of repentance and the redress of harm. There is a reason why our reading begins with justice, and only later moves on to reconciliation.

But this does not make it any easier to make this movement ourselves.

Here we come to the second prophet in today’s readings: John the Baptist. We encounter John wandering in the desert, dressed in camel hair and subsisting on a diet of locusts and wild honey. He is a feral man, living at odds with society: he warns of the axe that strikes at its roots. He prophesies fire coming down upon it. His words echo Isaiah’s cry for justice, and he shows that there is space for us, too, to opt for the wilderness, to make ourselves a horrifying vision of repentance, and to cry out warnings of blade and flame.

Yet even amidst this, John finds himself shifting towards peace: Christ baptises with fire, but it is also the fire of Pentecost, in which the lowly are empowered to speak truth to all the world. The religious authorities of John’s day are a “brood of vipers”—but there will still be vipers when the Messiah comes. I do not think John can see it. Like many of us today, he is all fear and rage, camel-hair and locusts. And this is the lesson of today’s reading: there may yet be a sweetness contained in all of this terror and bitterness—a drop of honey, even if it goes untasted.

–Dr. Nicolete Burbach, December 8, 2025

ADVENT RESOURCES

To enhance your Advent journey, consider looking into two New Ways Ministry resources:

1. Journeys: A Scripture Reflection Series for LGBTQ+ people and Allies:  This series is a collection of reflection exercises on a wide variety of scripture passages. These exercises are appropriate for individual or communal reflection, and many parish LGBTQ+ ministries have used them for disccussions. For the exercises for Advent Sunday liturgical scriptures, click on the links below:

Up to the Mountain – Isaiah 2:1-5 (1st Sunday)

Down to the Roots – Isaiah 11:1-10 (2nd Sunday)

Out to the Desert – Isaiah 35: 1-6a, 10 (3rd Sunday)

Into Your Home – Matthew 1:18-24 (4th Sunday)

2. The Word Goes Out: LGBTQ+ Scripture Reflections for the Liturgical Calendar: This brand-new resource is an archive of all of Bondings 2.0’s Sunday scripture reflection posts.   Check out the ones for the four Advent Sundays.   Additonally, check out general reflections on the Advent season to spark your prayer and reflection.  You can also find short reflections by Bondings 2.0 readers for The Isaiah Project, a series or responses to passages from the Book of Isaiah that we ran during Advent 2019.