The unsettling Peace God is bringing
Isaiah 11:1-9
11 A shoot shall come out from the stock of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
Out of the ruins, out of the stump of the tree that has been cut down, out of seemingly the end of the road comes hope and promise. Peace is like that, it comes small, unexpected, even fragile, and does its thing.
Peace brings change, fundamental change. Peace is not just the bullets stop flying, peace is that the situations that led to the bullets flying are changed. Vs. 4 is clear that the powerful and the elite will be upended as the poor and meek find their place of belonging, their place of equity in the world. This kind of peace involves a re-arrangement of the resources and the power in the world. Peace comes with a cost, the powerful and the elites need to give away their standing so that the meek and the poor can have a place at the table. Peace comes as the powerful and the elites choose the path of humility over imposing their wills, their wants.
That shift is displayed dramatically in vs. 7, bears and lions eating grass and straw, wolves living at peace with lambs. The expected patterns of nature are broken, a new way is found, one where the powerful and the weak live together in harmony. A new way in which the powerful are changed so they no longer enforce their will through power. A new way is found where the formerly weak, do not gloat over the decline of the powerful. A place where the newly lifted up do not simply become the new elite – a place where sheep and lions can rest in equal security, in equal peace.
Isaiah reminds us just how hard this will be, how far outside the normal patterns is this life of peace that Jesus the Prince of Peace is bringing. An unexpected, unsettling, yet sturdy, robust new life is coming from dead roots.
PRAYER:
O Lord, your peace unsettles us. Teach us to love and live into your peace rather than holding on to the patterns of destruction that are the way this world works. Unsettle us so that we might find our true belonging in you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.