Some of the loveliest words regularly read and repeated at this time of year come not, as some might assume, from the New Testament but from the Old. And chief among those are the words of the prophet Isaiah, as in the memorable passage from chapter 11 concerning in an era of peace and harmony ushered in by the coming of the Messiah. We await the ultimate fulfilment of that promise: though Christ has come, conflict and division in our world remain all too real. But that vision of the prophet is one that has captured the imagination of many across the centuries: one worth striving for, living for and praying for. The following meditation, taken from my book Grappling with God 4: The Word of the Lord, and reprinted in The Unfolding Story, reminds us of the importance of keeping hold of that hope.
Reading
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.
Isaiah 11:1-9
The meditation of Isaiah
Does this sound daft to you –
a wolf living with a lamb,
a lion grazing with an ox,
a child playing happily with a snake?
It does to me, I have to admit it,
now that I’ve had time to consider the implications.
But it didn’t at the time,
not when the idea first caught hold of me.
You see, I had this picture of a different kind of world,
a society where barriers are broken down,
where all the petty disputes that so often divide us
are a thing of the past.
Imagine it –
no more violence,
no more fear,
no more hatred,
no more suffering;
a world at one with itself,
all creatures living together in harmony,
nation existing peaceably alongside nation,
people set free to be themselves –
valued,
loved,
respected,
not for what we can get out of them,
but simply for what they are.
Is that so daft?
Well yes, it probably is,
because nine times out of ten,
ninety-nine times out of a hundred,
for most of us, when the pressure’s on,
it’s number one who comes first,
a question of ‘I’m all right and never mind the rest’.
We’d like it to be different, obviously,
but even when we’re not simply paying lip-service to high ideals,
we can’t finally change ourselves, try as we might.
Yet give me one thing –
it’s a wonderful idea, isn’t it,
this world of peace and justice? –
a beautiful picture –
worth striving for, I’d say,
even worth dying for.
And who knows, one day,
just maybe,
somebody might actually come along
with the faith and courage not just to dream about it,
but to bring it about;
not simply to share the vision,
but to live in such a way that it becomes real –
God’s kingdom, here on earth.
Prayer
Gracious God,
sometimes we look at this world of ours
and we despair.
We see its greed, corruption, hatred and violence,
and we ask, ‘How can it ever change?’
The heady dreams of youth are worn down
on the treadmill of experience
until a world-weary cynicism takes over.
Although we still make the right noises,
in our hearts we have given up expecting any real change.
Forgive us that sense of despair, Lord.
Forgive us for losing sight of all you are able to do.
Move within us, rekindling faith and hope,
and so help us not just to believe change can happen
but to play our part in ensuring it does.
Amen.