If ever we needed powerful images to touch our imagination and give us a vision of what will come to pass when our God comes, Isaiah's prophetic poetry fills the hearts of modern people with hope, just as it did for the Israelites who suffered slavery and exile from their homeland. Isaiah proclaims that where there has been war, God comes to bring peace. He will restore the lineage of David and give the people a faithful shepherd to lead them. On that day, "a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse and from his roots a bud shall blossom” and justice will flourish.
Isaiah points to the overturning and the healing of a broken world. He proclaims a guarantee that God will bring renewal to His people - not just an interior change but by a transformation of the world.
But this vision of a peaceful kingdom is very different from the world in which we live. In our world the poor and innocent are often judged unfairly and violence and death erupts in the wars of nations, in our streets, and sometimes in our hearts and homes. Sadly the difference between Isaiah’s words and our experience can lead us to dismiss this vision as pious day-dreaming.
Isaiah describes a perfect world in order to reveal what God intends. He wants us to remember that our God is a God who is eternally opposed to all that is unjust, violent or evil. Our God wants to change things, and He calls us to participate in the elimination of evil from our world.
But how can we do this?
Perhaps a clue lies in the words of John the Baptist. We must be the voices crying out in the desert. We must make the crooked ways straight. And doing this requires a change in our lives. We must change in a way that will more faithfully attune us to God’s word, a fresh hearing and open ears from us. The old stuff must be cut down, “at the root,” so God can come to renew and reignite the intense heat of His love and call in us. We must be the "signal to the nations" of which Isaiah speaks in our first Reading.
Christ needs someone to continue to speak aloud his words of justice, love, empathy, and compassion today. If not our voice, then whose? If the vision of Isaiah is to be fulfilled, we must find the courage to put words into action and face off against the evil around us. Our world is not Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom, but we believe that God intends to make it so. And we trust that our God uses our actions of goodness, however small, to make this kingdom real.
The central message of our Advent is that the Lord has come. He has taken away the curse of our sins, He has baptized us in the Holy Spirit, He has comforted us and blessed us. He has come like a good shepherd to gather the lambs in His arms.
It may not yet be time for the lion to lay down with the lamb. But it is time for us to prepare His way.
