The Peace We Have Ignored
Isaiah 11:1-10
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 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. 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; 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. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. 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. The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 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. On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.
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What does it mean to be at peace? I mean it. What does it mean to be at peace? I guess it depends on who you ask. Peace can mean many different things to many different people. A motivational speaker like David Ramsey will tell you that financial health is what will lead you to a path of peace. A plethora of self-help books will tell you that you need to look inside yourself to find peace via methods such as positive self-talk and affirmations. We often talk about peace in terms of our own well being, which is only natural, but what would it look like for us to talk about the kind of peace we find in this morning's reading from the book of Isaiah. Because let me tell you, the peace we see in the words of the prophet Isaiah looks very different from the kind of peace the world tells us we need.
The promise, the glimpse of peace this morning from the prophet Isaiah is found within the context of very tumultuous times. The people of Israel are in exile. The people of Ancient Israel and Judah were taken into captivity and brought to live in the Assyrian Empire. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be forcibly removed from your home and brought to a place you didn’t know? A place that you have never been too or knew nothing about? In a situation like that, we would want to catch a glimpse of whatever peace we could get our hands-on. It is in the hard places, the hard spaces, where the prophecy of Isaiah enters into the picture and offers a foretaste of what is to come if we are willing to trust that God will usher in peace through unexpected means. I wonder if there is an experience of our own that can help us hone in on the promise, the prophetic words we hear this morning.
In 1935, the United States Department of Justice found its permanent home on 950 Constitution Ave NW in Washington, D.C. Murals funded by the Public Works Arts Project and were commissioned soon after between 1938-1941 and 1968 to present an artist's impression of what justice could and should look like in the United States. One of these pieces of art originated from a Russian immigrant name Symeon Shimin who painted a mural called "Contemporary Justice and the Child." It took Shimin four years to complete the painting, and it can still be seen on the third floor of the Department of Justice building in Washington, D.C. today. Through the eyes of an immigrant, an outsider, an artist, we catch a glimpse of where justice has been absent. But perhaps, more importantly, we catch sight of what the future could look like for all people.
Starting from the left-hand side, Shimin portrays the brokenness of a nation. There are factories that are pouring thick clouds of smoke into the sky, blotting out the sun. There are haunting eyes and malnourished faces coming from a mass of the countries poor depicted with shadowy grey and black hues. And these are a pair of men who are asleep, their bodies twisted and bent, hidden from the eyes of the public. In all these instances, Shimin puts his art to work so that it tells a story of the unjust systems; systems that keep the poor poor, systems that the rich and powerful put in place so neighbor would be pitted against neighbor, and tells a story of suffering so that we might be reminded of where we came from.
There is something that happens though by the time we reach the middle of the painting. In the middle, there is a hand holding tools of an architect, brown hands that symbolize a new era. And as we come around the bend, we begin to see women working alongside men, laying out the plans for a truly just land. Shimin also shows us scientists, artists, and musicians of every race, color, and creed innovating for a prosperous world. In the upper right-hand corner, Shimin depicts a scene with greenery and clean air, which stands in stark contrast to the polluted creation that we saw previously. Perhaps though, it’s the center of Shimin’s artistic vision where we are drawn back into the essence of this morning’s passage. We find in the middle a mother with her arms wrapped around her child.
We’re tempted to think that innocent, naive, or young things aren’t able to contribute anything worthwhile in our quest for peace. Think back to that child in the center of Shimin’s mural and think about the countless children and youth who have helped peel back the scales from our eyes in order to show us something new. Ruby Bridges was one such child. Ruby Bridges took the first steps, hard steps, and bold steps, to be the first African American child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans on November 14, 1960. The prophet Isaiah says, “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.” The question for us is, “Will we let that little child lead us to that peace that flows from the throne of God?”
Are we willing to let ourselves be led to peace from those who we think are unlikely heralds of peace? Or will we scurry to try and make a peace of our design, ignoring the potential fulfillment of that true peace that the little child, our children today, have come to show us? Have we really become so jaded by the world and the news that we aren’t to hear the cries of what the future could be if we only listened and followed? That is something we need to ask ourselves this Advent season as we await the birth of Jesus Christ. Because we are told this morning in the prophecy from Isaiah that the savior of the world was not going to come with military might, no artillery rounds or branches of the armed forces at his command. No, the prophecy tells us that Christ will come as an unassuming child. If we were to stop and listen, could we hear those voices speaking to us in our own unique contexts?
In some ways, we are in exile. We may not be in an unfamiliar place, but we are confronted with the broken relationships that we have with one another and with God. Yet in that brokenness, there is a chance for us to find the peace that we hear this morning, the kind of peace that soothes our afflicted souls. We just have to be willing to be led to it by children. We have to crack open our hardened hearts and allow ourselves to feel again. And we have to be ready to go out into the wilderness and find that peace by having some conversations with people we may not have wanted to talk to in the first place. Because it will be there, and it will be in those conversations that we find the kind of peace that Isaiah prophesied.
I am a little disappointed that we didn’t get to touch much on him this morning, but there is another voice that we hear this morning as well, one that we would be a little wary of if we were to see where it was coming from. I’m talking about the voice of John the Baptist, from our first reading, who cries out in the wilderness still rings out to us today as we try to make our way through the desert in search of peace. And when we add the Baptist’s words with the words of Isaiah, we are given something to strive for as we seek to put our faith into action for the sake of God’s peace. Will we hear and respond to what John the Baptist has to say? Will we listen and respond to the little children who are in our midst telling us what we need to do in order to secure peace for their children as well? If we can listen to the cries of the Christ Child, then maybe there is still hope that one day, our ears may hear and our bodies take up the call to action.
As we continue our Advent journey will be reminded that are hurdles that still need to be overcome. There are the King Herods of the world, there are “brood of vipers” who try only to make themselves look good, and there are Pontius Pilates and Assyrians in our midst and around us who will try to prey on the powerless. And so that is why we need to equip ourselves with the hope we talked about last week and the peace that we are reminded of today. Because the Christ child is coming, the one who will set our feet on a path that leads to wholeness and has put numerous other children and advocates in our way to remind us of the peace that exists in God’s kingdom. Amen.