Light of Peace - Isaiah 9 & 11

They were the big three every year.  It was how you knew it was Christmas.  The TV Guide would arrive, and I would quickly scour it to find out when they would be on.  There was Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and my favorite, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”  That’s probably why when I heard this song years ago, it quickly became a song I listened out for every year…

Some may be wondering about whether a seemingly secular song has any place in our worship today.  It doesn’t mention Jesus or Mary or Shepherds or Wisemen or anything that we traditionally think of when we think of Christmas carols.  However, when we set it alongside this morning’s readings from Isaiah it becomes very fitting. 

Snoopy and the Red Baron…arch rivals…images of World War I’s raging air war….  Charles Shultz introduced these characters in 1965, years after the war, but at a time when interest in the flying aces of WWI had peaked.  It was also a time in which the United States had seemingly been in a season of unending conflict: World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam standing about above all other skirmishes.  The Peanuts would not have been images that the prophet Isaiah, nor the people of Israel, would have had in mind, yet the Royal Guardsmen when they penned this song, may have very well had Isaiah in mind.

The people of Israel, like the United States when Shultz and the Guardsmen offered their gifts, had often found itself in a constant state of conflict—with the Philistines, with the Assyrians, with the Babylonians, and others.  They had been attacked, ruled over, taken into exile and mostly likely felt overwhelmed and longed for a day when the violence would cease.

What is the root of all their conflict, or for that mater all conflict, all violence, all war?  It traces its way back to a Garden…the Garden of Eden.  When God brought Creation into being, He created the world in which there was no violence, in which there was no conflict.  It was a world in which the lion, wolf, bear, and leopard lived alongside the lamb, goat, and cow.  They did not feed upon one another, nor did Adam and Eve—they ate of the plants of the garden.  It was a time in which the animals lived in harmony with one another and with humanity, and humanity lived in perfect harmony with the animals, one another, and God.  Then the tempter entered the picture and convinced humanity to question God’s intent and will for them and led them to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Conflict immediately erupted when God confronted Adam and Eve on what they had done…Eve blamed the serpent, Adam blamed Eve and God Himself.  Things went downhill from there with conflict turning to violence as Cain took his brother Abel’s life, as the residents of Sodom sought the lives of those visiting Lot, as Joseph’s brothers beat him up, threw him into a well, and sold him into slavery…all while humanity and the creatures of creation began consuming one another.  From the Fall of Adam and Eve, humanity found conflicts growing and wars erupting with no end to the violence in sight.

Into this world of violence, as the people found themselves exiled in Babylon, violently ripped from their homeland, Isaiah speaks of the Light of God entering this dark world of violence and bringing it to an end.  Hear those words again:

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined…For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon His shoulder; and He is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  His authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace…He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forevermore…The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with he kid, the calf and the lion and the falling 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 speaks into the darkness of this world and promises that God is going to enter in and bring all violence to an end, restoring Creation to His intended vision of it.  He speaks of a time in which those that in this fallen world are natural or, even, contrived enemies, are restored to a state of living with one another in peace.  Isaiah speaks of a time in which the Light of Peace will enter into the darkness of this violent world and disperse it once and for all.

The people of Israel heard this promise and began to envision a time in which all their enemies would be taken down and they would be lifted up.  They began looking for a Messiah that would ride in like a mighty warrior king who through the power of a sword and mighty army would dispel the empires around them and make Israel the nation over all other nations.

Yet, as God sought to restore His peace to creation, that is not what happened.  God’s act of restoration did not begin with a white horse bearing a crown wearing mighty warrior riding into Jerusalem to take down Herod and Rome.  It began with a pregnant young woman accompanying her fiancé riding into the tiny town of Bethlehem on the back of a donkey.  It began with a tiny child laying in the feeding trough of barnyard animals.  It continued as that little child grew into a man who became not a soldier, but a rabbi, teaching all who would listen.  It continued as this rabbi entered Jerusalem riding not on a white stallion, but like his mother entering Bethlehem, on the back of a donkey.  It appeared to conclude as that rabbi, Jesus, hung and died upon a cross.  While it might seem like on that cross the serpent from Eden finally won the battle, the empty tomb three days later proved God the Victor.  God, through Christ, shown the Light of Peace into the darkness of conflict as the sin of the Garden of Eden was overcome in that empty garden tomb.

Why would God do war this way?  Why not just strike down with a bolt of lightning every one of the Nebuchadnezzar’s, the Herod’s, the Nero’s, the Hitler’s, the Stalin’s, the Hussein’s, and others like them and usher peace into the world by simply wiping out every violent imperialistic leader? 

It is because God knew that the true solution to bringing peace into the world, to restoring Creation to His design, to begin to bring an end to the conflict and violence out there, had to begin with bringing an end to the conflict and violence that lay within the hearts of each one of us.

When the Light of Peace, the Prince of Peace, Jesus, shines into our lives, we realize just how far we fallen from who we are created to be…we see in Christ what it means to live in perfect harmony with God and one another, what it means to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. We find in the Light of Peace what it looks like to live for the sake of others rather that for ourselves…what it means to put those around us and their needs above our own.  We find in the Light of Peace what it means to forgive those who have wronged us, even before they desire forgiveness.  We find in the Light of Peace what it means love our enemies.  We see in the Light of Peace what it means to live in the perfect Image of God rather than live in broken conflict.

And as we begin living in this Light, we will find that the powers of conflict and violence in this world have no power over us and cannot compel us to be part of their darkness.  We find the Power of the Spirit of this Light dwelling within us enabling us to forgive, enabling us to refuse to retaliate, enabling us to lay down our lives for the sake of those we love, and maybe for the sake of those we don’t.  As this Light of Peace burns off the darkness in our lives…and Peace begins with us…we begin to experience and become a part of God’s restorative work in the world we will find ourselves becoming part of a world in which the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling living in harmony…we will find ourselves in a world in which the Jew and the Greek; the slave and free; the male and female; the Snoopy’s and the Red Barons; the Democrats and Republicans; the Methodists, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Presbyterians, and the Catholics;  the White, the Black, the Hispanic, the Asian, the Arabic, the Native American, and every other ethnicity find themselves living in perfect harmony, living as one in Christ…not just in a temporary Christmas cease-fire or truce, but in peace, now and forevermore.

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…Amen.