Today is the first Sunday of Advent. For the next four weeks we will read and hear words that prepare us for the birth of Jesus. Our scripture lesson for this Sunday is from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah tells us that the one coming will settle things between nations and turn swords into shovels and spears into hoes. No more will nation fight nation and they won’t play war anymore.
Reading that phrase “wont’ lay war anymore” reminded of an old African American Spiritual, “Down by the Riverside” or “Ain’t gonna study war no more.” That is the phrase repeated in the chorus that we “Ain't gonna study war no more.” I like the Message when it says play war anymore, because there isn’t anything about war that is playing. War is serious in its affect on people’s lives and the destruction it brings on individuals, families and nations.
But war doesn’t always have to be between nations. Battles are often fought between families over money and inheritance or individuals fight personal battles with drugs, alcohol and many other self destroying aspects of our lives. We fight an even greater war with the forces of evil that are present in our world.
This child that Isaiah says is coming will be one who will put an end to all of those things. So if Jesus has come where is the end to these struggles in life? Where is the end to war and violence? Where is the new kingdom that God promised?
These are not new questions, but questions that have been asked throughout history.
In the time of Isaiah of Jerusalem, Judah was under the protection of Assyria. During Isaiah's lifetime the Assyrians would sweep in and totally annihilate the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and threaten to do the same to the Southern Kingdom of Judah. Judah had weak leaders who saw it more politically expedient to appease the Empire than to be faithful to God.
And yet there were those like Isaiah who could envision a different reality, who could hope for a time when Israel would be faithful and allow God to be God. Israel was weary of war and threat, weary of the divisions that had torn her country apart after Solomon, weary of the instability of a world in which power and the oppression that it brings were the controlling factors in the world. Some like Isaiah knew that God's vision of the world was much different. They knew the God they served was the same God who had heard the cries of oppressed slaves in Egypt and entered history to relieve their oppression. They knew that because God was such a God, he would not forever tolerate oppression in the world.
So they hoped and dreamed. They hoped and dreamed of a time when God would enter the world and bring an end to war and suffering, when he would establish His reign on earth and restore all creation to what He intended it to be. They dreamed of a time when the division that had torn their people apart and divided them into north and south might be healed, and they could once again be a whole people under God. They dreamed of a time when "things would be settled fairly between nation, swords would be made into shovels and spears into hoes.” They dreamed of a time of peace where God’s Kingdom would reign.
And so we wait and wait for God to move in the world. But God has moved. God moved in the world 2000 years ago when Jesus was born. He was, is and always will be the “Prince of peace.”
But the reality for us is the coming Peace is here, but not fully here. We only get glimpses of what it can truly be like. The fulfillment of the promises has become new promises, so we continue to dream Isaiah’s dream. We continue to dream of a day when peace is the rule and not the exception.
But how long are we to wait? When will that day finally come? Have we worked hard enough to turn swords into shovels and spears into hoes or are we depending on God to much too make things better? Where is our hope?
A pastor had told his congregation to just do some little thing in their small corner of the world to make a difference. Of course, there is a need for that. But is it possible that sometimes our vision is far too small, that it needs to transcend our own little corner of the world? Sometimes we need to dream the big dreams, to believe in a big God, and then live in the world as if He really were that big! Maybe we really can change the world, with God's help! Maybe Peace really is our responsibility in our world.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, "We must build banks of courage to hold back the flood of fear... That old law about "an eye for an eye" leaves everybody blind... The time is always right to do the right thing... Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”
As Christians we are to strive for peace, for this coming child is the prince of peace. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, blessed are the peace makers for they shall inherit the earth.
Advent is a preparation for the coming of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. Peace on earth came 2,000 years ago, but it is not fully here yet. It has only come as a glimpse of what can be. The fulfillment of the promises has become new promises and expectation. And so we dream Isaiah's dream again. We dream the dream of a divided people that God will bring wholeness, even as we hammer on our swords and spears trying to make plowshares.
When that day will come we do not know. But we hope and wait expectantly. We live today in the reality of what he has already showed us, and what he has promised. When he comes, may he find us hard at work hammering our swords into plowshares, and our spears into hoes.
I have heard the story of a wise old Rabbi who instructed his students by asking questions. He asked, "How can a person tell when the darkness ends and the day begins?" After thinking for a moment, one student replied, "It is when there is enough light to see an animal in the distance and be able to tell if it is a sheep or a goat." Another student ventured, "It is when there is enough light to see a tree, and tell if it is a fig or an oak tree."
The old Rabbi gently said, "No. It is when you can look into a man's face and recognize him as your brother. For if you cannot recognize in another's face the face of your brother, the darkness has not yet begun to lift, and the light has not yet come."
Let us lay down our burdens by the riverside and not study war no more. Let us live as peace makers in a world of violence. Let us live with the expectance of his coming again, to finish the work that he started and has, in the mean time, left us in charge of.
