© Rev. Lance Carrithers, all rights reserved.  Permission required to copy any portion of this message by any means. Email for permission: lance@firstchurchdc.com

"Sing a Song of Peace"

Isaiah 11:1-10

      Jesse’s root.  It’s a mind-picture.   You see, King David, Jesse’s boy, was the best King Israel had ever known.  He united the northern and southern tribes into a single Kingdom, and he won peace for Israel, and then ruled over a prolonged period of peace and prosperity.  There’s no one better in Israel’s eyes, than David.

So, when the remnant of what was once Israel finds themselves in exile, their homeland and their temple destroyed, they have hope that there will come another King, surely he will come from the same side of the family, one of Jesse’s descendants. 

You get the idea?  The mighty cedar that once was Israel, is now just a stump.  The great tribe that once was Jesse’s tribe, is now just a small remnant.  And from this stump, there is the hope that a new shoot will rise. 

And this new king, this coming king, Isaiah says, “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.”

Oh my!  It sounds horrible!  Remember though, the people lost and exiled are looking for someone to deliver them and return them to their former glory.  So before you get to anxious about what Isaiah thinks this new King, this coming King will do (striking down the wicked) listen to the result:

“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.”

You hear it?  We have learned in the tradition of the church to call this the “Peaceable Kingdom.”   Edward Hicks painted what has become a famous painting called the Peaceable Kingdom.     Actually, there isn’t a singular, definitive work of art titled the Peaceable Kingdom, for Hicks, you see, painted between 70 and 100 versions of the painting.   In all of them, you see the Lion right away, there with the ox.   And there—see?  The wolf and the lamb.  The leopard, see?  Sleeping next to the young goat—the kid.   And the bear and the cow, and the children, see?  The children, playing with the wild animals?  And the little child, leading them all?

But in many of the painting, as one looks down, toward the lower left, there’s something we might miss on a first, cursory look.  See?

Some early colonists.  And Indians.  What are they doing down there?

Hicks incorporated a vignette of William Penn's treaty with the Indians.  The painter, it is thought, was trying to draw parallels between the human treaty, and God’s covenant of the peaceable kingdom, led by his own child.

But notice; there is a chasm, a divide, between the animals of peace, and the humans entering into this treaty of peace.   I wonder what Hicks was trying to say?  As the colonists and Native Americans make their own promise to live in peace, the biblical vision is before them:  Lions and cows, wolfs and lambs, leopards and kids—once vicious enemies, existing now a community of peace.  The painting shows us again Isaiah’s vision of God’s peace, possible only through the child, the shoot from Jesse’s stump.

It’s ludicrous to believe that peace might come about through one individual.  Even if that individual is God’s own son.  After all, in this bloodthirsty world, what difference can one individual make?

Telemachus was a monk who lived in the 4th century in a cloistered monastery.  He felt God saying to him, “Go to Rome.”   And so Telemachus put his possessions in a sack and set out for Rome.  When he arrived in the city, people were thronging in the streets.  He asked why all the excitement and was told that this was the day that the gladiators would be fighting and killing each other in the coliseum, the day of the games, the circus.  He thought to himself, “Four centuries after Christ and they are still killing each other, for enjoyment?”   He ran to the coliseum and heard the gladiators saying, “Hail to Caesar, we die for Caesar” and he thought, “this isn’t right.”   He jumped over the railing and went out into the middle of the field, got between two gladiators, held up his hands and said “In the name of Christ, forbear.”

The crowd protested and began to shout, “Run him through, Run him through.” A gladiator came over and hit him in the stomach with the back of his sword.  It sent him sprawling in the sand. He got up and ran back and again said, “In the name of Christ, forbear.” The crowd continued to chant, “Run him through.”  One gladiator came over and plunged his sword through the little monk’s stomach and he fell into the sand, which began to turn crimson with his blood.  One last time he gasped out, “In the name of Christ forbear.”

A hush came over the 80,000 people in the coliseum.  Soon a man stood and left, then another and more, and within minutes all 80,000 had emptied out of the arena.   It was the last-known gladiatorial contest in the history of Rome.  And perhaps, the Peaceable Kingdom of God came a bit closer to reality.

When Isaiah first recorded this vision of peace for the people of God, they dreamed only of a king to deliver them from exile.   How could they understand a deliverer who could not only bring the people out of exile, but could redeem them from all sin?   Peace not just from one enemy, but all enemies, including the enemy of evil and death.  This is the peace that is more than simply the absence of conflict; this is the peace that literally passes all human understanding, as Scripture reminds us.

We who celebrate Christmas long for such peace.   We sing about it.  “Sleep in heavenly peace…sleep in heavenly peace.”  Right?  And “Peace on the earth, good will toward all, from heaven’s all gracious King.”

At Christmas, we long for all humans to live in peace, but perhaps more than that, we long to live with peace.  To have peace within us.  The sort of peace Jesus talks of when he says, “Peace I leave with you.  My peace I give you.  I do not give as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid.”  (John 14:27)

Our peace comes from the same source as does our hope.  Our peace is in the name of Jesus Christ.    In just a moment, we will gather, as we do regularly, around the table of our Lord.  We will eat just a crumb of bread, and we will touch our lips to just a small taste of the fruit of the vine.  And as we do, we will receive the gift of our Lord. 

After all, this is the season for gifts, isn’t it?  This is the season when we each secretly desire to be remembered with some token of love?    This gift, today, is our Lord himself.  Offering us what the world cannot.   Remember this as the world works so hard to get each of us to worship the God of the fourth quarter retail sales.  This gift, at this table, is that which the world simply cannot give.  The gift of peace.  From the Lord of peace.  Thanks be to God.