Isaiah 11:1-9

A Peaceable Kingdom

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “A Peaceable Kingdom” Isaiah 65:17-25

Edward Hicks was a Quaker sign painter born in Pennsylvania in 1780. He is acknowledged as one of America’s greatest folk artists. In 1820, when Edward was forty years old, he painted Isaiah’s vision of “The Peaceable Kingdom.” Against a green landscape and blue skies, a primitive looking infant, swaddled in gauzy cloth, sits between a pointy-horned ox and a lounging lion. The ox and the lion munch on hay. Nearby, a wooly lamb cozies up to a placid wolf. Two goats and a leopard look like best friends. It’s a wistful vision of a new creation, a world where violence has come to an end, where all God’s creatures live in peace, abundance, and safety.

This morning, the world is far from that bucolic vision of the peaceable kingdom. It’s day 1,361 of the war in Ukraine. Fierce fighting is ongoing in Zaporizihia, amid adverse weather conditions. In response to ongoing Russian aggression, Ukraine has targeted drone and missile strikes on key Russian oil facilities to disrupt Russian supply lines and military operations. On Friday night, Russia launched a blistering assault on Ukraine, killing at least six people and injuring 35 as 430 drones and 18 missiles rained down through the night sky. It’s estimated that Russian military casualties in the war have topped 1,000,000 personnel while Ukraine’s deaths and injuries are near 450,000. An estimated 45,000 Ukrainian civilians have been caught in the crossfire, about 3,000 of those children. We long for a peaceable kingdom.

Yemen has been locked in civil war for more than a decade. In September 2014, Houthi forces took control of the capital, Sanaa, following widespread discontent with the Saudi-backed government. A coalition, led by Saudi Arabia, stepped in, using air strikes to try to restore the former Yemeni government. Al Qaeda and ISIS fighters soon saw the conflict as a way to advance their regional ambitions, so they have carried out attacks against both factions. In the shadows, the Iranians pull the strings. Israel has been drawn into the conflict, killing the Yemeni Prime Minister in an August airstrike. In just the first three years of the war, more than 85,000 children died of starvation. A decade of war has left Yemen’s infrastructure in ruins and its people exhausted. Close to 20 million people in Yemen depend on aid simply to survive. Nearly five million are homeless, pushed from one place to another by violence and disaster. We long for a peaceable kingdom.

In our reading from the Prophet Isaiah, we hear God’s promise of a peaceable kingdom. The Israelites had returned to Jerusalem after fifty years of exile in Babylon. They were refugees returning to a homeland that was broken and scarred by war. Ancestral property rights were gone. Vineyards and fields had gone wild. Food was scarce. Disease was rampant. Neighbors, who had not gone into exile, were hostile and suspicious. Roads were unsafe. The Temple was in ruins. In a devastated land that once flowed with milk and honey, the people’s safety and security hung upon the mercy of a foreign king. A foreign-appointed government had replaced the once mighty kingship of David. The lives of the remnant of Israel were so filled with death, grief, hunger, and despair that they began to wonder. Is God with us? Has God forsaken us and sent us home to live as a broken people in a broken land?

Into this time of uncertainty and fear, Isaiah spoke words of prophetic promise, a beautiful vision of a fresh start in a new Jerusalem where weeping will cease and children will thrive. It was a bold vision of long life, good homes, and abundant harvests. It was a faithful promise of abiding love and prayers answered from generation to generation.  It was a holy vision of peace for all creation, of a new Eden where the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and God’s holy mountain will be free of hurt and destruction. God promised the people an everlasting shalom, the peace and wholeness that we find when we are in right relationship with God, neighbor, and even within ourselves.

I imagine that as the people listened, their eyes filled with tears and their hearts with longing. They remembered that God is with them, always with them. They found the courage to persevere and seek the future that God held ready for them. They rolled up their sleeves and worked the fallow fields. They shared what little they had, so that everyone had enough. They gathered at the Temple, worshipped amid the ruins, and dreamed of a new sanctuary. They reached out to their suspicious neighbors with kindness and patience, setting aside their tribalism to work toward a shared future. It wasn’t exactly the peaceable kingdom, but it held the promise of it.

This morning, we may not be caught up in the ground-shaking artillery fire of Zaporizihia, or the mass homelessness and hunger of Yemen, or the despair of Israelite refugees returning to a broken land, but we, too, long for a peaceable kingdom. We mourn the casualties in Ukraine, the devastation of Gaza, and the threat of war with Venezuela. We are grieved by the fracture of longstanding alliances and friendships between nations. We are frightened by the seemingly intractable polarization of our political landscape. We despair over the lack of respect or even common courtesy in our public discourse. In this land of plenty, we are shocked by widespread food insecurity and the millions of neighbors who teeter on the brink of economic crisis. We long for a peaceable kingdom.

As the holidays draw near, we acknowledge that we long for peace closer to home. We want peace for our families; we dream of a holiday table where every place is occupied, every tummy is full, the conversation is merry, and the love abounds. We need God’s peace to find a spirit of tolerance and acceptance, to heal our hardheartedness and unwillingness to accept one another as we are. We long for God’s forgiveness that will be a balm for old wounds and long-held grudges. We pray for God’s courage and grace to name and heal from incidents of abuse. And when we take the time to be quiet, to go deeper, we admit that we need God’s peace in our hearts, so that we may forgive ourselves as we have forgiven others, love without strings attached, and accept what cannot be changed. We long for a peaceable kingdom.

This morning, may we hear anew God’s promise through the Prophet Isaiah of the new heavens and new earth, of the peaceable kingdom where ancient enmities come to an end, where the lion lies down with the lamb. May we remember that God is with us, always with them. We may make a mess of our world, but future is always in God’s hands, and the vision is one of peace.

If we listen with the ears of our hearts, we may even hear God’s vision that peace begins with us. We are not the architects of the peaceable kingdom, but we can be the artists, painting peace with the brushstrokes of lives lived in faith and love. Let’s roll up our sleeves and join God in the work of shalom. We cannot arbitrate ceasefires for Ukraine and Yemen, yet we can pray for their peace. We can demand better and more peaceful ways for those who govern. We can reach out to neighbors with kindness and patience, setting aside tribalism to work toward a shared future. We can share what we have, so that everyone has enough. We can dare to heal our families, reaching out with love, even if our best efforts fall short. Let’s extend to others and to ourselves the grace that has been so freely shared with us in Jesus. It won’t be the peaceable kingdom, but with God’s help our lives may begin to hold the promise of it. Let’s take a moment to commit ourselves to take one action in the coming week that can prosper peace.

The Quaker painter Edward Hicks painted “The Peaceable Kingdom” more than a hundred times in the last twenty years of his life, as if by repeatedly painting the promise of the kingdom he could hasten its coming. Over the years, Hicks’ Bucks County surroundings began to be represented in his paintings. The Delaware River wound through the background. Little girls entered the picture, breaking the gender barrier and joining the Christ child in his peaceful romp with the wild beasts. In the distance, William Penn and his Quaker friends, clad in somber shades of gray and black, passed a peace pipe with Lenni Lenape tribesmen in bright blankets, feathers, and wampum. Hicks painted to cast a prophetic vision of harmony and plenty, an end to violence and bloodshed, a setting aside of oppression for women and people of color. It’s as if Hicks trusted that if he could share Isaiah’s vision in ways that spoke to his world, folks would understand and change would come. It wouldn’t be the peaceable kingdom, but with God’s help there would be the promise of it.

We may not be America’s greatest folk artists, but Isaiah’s vision of the peaceable kingdom still sparks the imagination of God’s people. May we go forth to seek that kingdom with the broad brushstrokes of lives lived in pursuit of peace.

Resources

Carolyn J. Sharp. “Commentary on Isaiah 65:17-25” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 14, 2010. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 65:17-25 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Garrett Galvin. “Commentary on Isaiah 65:17-25” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 14, 2010. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 65:17-25 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

John Braostoski. “Hicks’s Peaceable Kingdom,” Friends Journal, February 2000. Hicks’s Peaceable Kingdom – Friends Journal

James C. Reynolds and Steffie Banatvala. “Inside Putin’s campaign of terror in Kyiv: Why Russia keeps bombarding the capital” In The Independent, Nov. 14, 2025. Accessed online at Inside Putin’s campaign of terror in Kyiv: Why Russia keeps bombarding the capital | The Independent

Lyndal Rowlands and News Agencies. “Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,357” in Aljazeera, Nove. 12, 2025. Accessed online at Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,357 | Russia-Ukraine war News | Al Jazeera

Statista Research Department. “Number of civilian casualties in Ukraine during Russia’s invasion verified by OHCHR from February 24, 2022 to July 31, 2025,” Statista, Sept. 25, 2025. Accessed online at Ukraine civilian war casualties 2025| Statista

Othman Belbeisi. “Yemen: Ten Years of War, a Lifetime of Loss” in UN News, March 26, 2025. Accessed online at Yemen: Ten Years of War, a Lifetime of Loss | UN News

Isaiah 65:17-25

For I am about to create new heavens
    and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
    or come to mind.
18 But be glad and rejoice forever
    in what I am creating,
for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy
    and its people as a delight.
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem
    and delight in my people;
no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it
    or the cry of distress.
20 No more shall there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days
    or an old person who does not live out a lifetime,
for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth,
    and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed.
21 They shall build houses and inhabit them;
    they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
22 They shall not build and another inhabit;
    they shall not plant and another eat,
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,
    and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labor in vain
    or bear children for calamity,[a]
for they shall be offspring blessed by the Lord—
    and their descendants as well.
24 Before they call I will answer,
    while they are yet speaking I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together;
    the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
    but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
            says the Lord.

“The Peaceable Kingdom” Edward Hicks, 1832. From the collection of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center (United States)

The Promise of Peace

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “The Promise of Peace” Isaiah 11:1-9

On this second Sunday in Advent, we light the candle of peace.  Yet peace feels hard to come by this year. Tensions are high on the Korean Peninsula as Kim Jong Un escalates weapons testing and the South responds with further sanctions. In Ukraine, as troops recover territory once occupied by Russian invaders, they discover a trail of human rights abuses left behind.  All the while, the Russian missiles fall, destroying Ukraine’s power and energy infrastructure as winter approaches.

We long for peace within our nation.  We are wearied by the polarization that casts our political rivals as mortal enemies.  We are heartbroken by the continuing tide of gun violence.  611 mass shootings this year have wounded 3,179 people and taken 637 lives. We are frightened by the rise in hate.  Last month’s shooting in Colorado Springs is the most recent attack in growing violence against our LGBTQ neighbors.  Dark memories of the Holocaust stir amid a surge of antisemitic rhetoric by celebrities, athletes, and politicians.

We long for peace in our homes. Christmas reminds us of the wounds that every family bears.  Our thoughts brush up against our estranged kin, once a part of our holiday joy and now a painful memory of alienation.  As we put on a good show for the gathered clan, we may struggle in marriages grown strained and distant.  We’ll face long-held patterns of family dysfunction: our drunken uncle, the harshly critical parent, the debt-burdened shopaholic. 

We light the candle of peace this morning, longing for the peace of our world, our nation, and our homes.

In the 8th century BC, when Isaiah spoke God’s promise of a coming king and a transformed world, the Hebrew people were far from peace.  The Assyrian Empire was ascendant, marching out of the north like a swarm of locusts.  They excelled at war, having mastered the art of forging iron weapons that were far superior to the bronze-age armaments of their enemies. The armies of Assyria had engineering units to set up ladders and ramps, fill in moats, and dig tunnels to breach walled cities. They were among the first to build chariots, which provided greater mobility and protection on the battlefield.  One by one, the cities of the ancient near east fell to the advancing Assyrian tide.

On a national front, the Israelites knew little of peace. David may have united the twelve tribes of Israel, but within a few generations, the alliance had crumbled.  The Hebrew people had divided into two nations, the Kingdom of Israel to the north and the Kingdom of Judah to the south.  They were often at odds, allying with greater powers on the world stage to the detriment of one another. As the Assyrian army drew near, Judah refused the call to arms to help their northern brothers.  City by city, the Kingdom of Israel fell and its people were defeated and deported.

According to the Prophet Isaiah, peace was hard to find on the home front.  In oracle after oracle, the prophet denounced a people who “called evil good and good evil” (5:20). They worshipped false gods.  They loved graft and chased after bribes. They failed to defend the rights of the fatherless and refused to give justice to widows (1:23).

Over and against this backdrop of conflict and division, the Prophet Isaiah described the peace that would prevail when the Messiah came and the priorities of God’s Kingdom prevailed. According to Isaiah, on that glorious day the nation would be ruled with wisdom, understanding, and fear of the Lord. Righteousness would abound and justice would be served. In a wonderful act of rhetorical exaggeration, Isaiah cast the vision of a new Eden unfolding as the peaceable human kingdom overflowed to all creation.  Wolf and lamb, calf and lion, all would live in harmony.

Isaiah reminded the Hebrew people that God’s longing for our world is peace with justice and righteousness for all.  Isaiah held out the hope that when God’s people choose to live in accord with God’s will, they can flourish.  It’s a vision that must have sounded like music to the ears of Isaiah’s listeners.  It’s a bold picture of peaceful possibility that continues to speak to our imaginations, here and now. 

When the early church read the words of the Prophet Isaiah, they recognized Jesus in Isaiah’s description of the Messiah.  Jesus, with his deep wisdom and keen understanding of God’s law, Jesus with his deep piety and reverence, Jesus with his care for the sick and heart for the outsider, Jesus would embody those character traits of Isaiah’s coming king.  Jesus would embrace peace by welcoming strangers, sinners, and enemies. He would walk the path of non-violence, turning the other cheek to his accusers and praying for his executioners.  As those first Christians carried the Way of Jesus out into the Roman Empire, they knew that the peaceable kingdom persisted whenever wisdom and understanding, piety and love of the Lord were shared and embraced.

On the second Sunday of Advent, Isaiah’s promise of the coming king and his peaceable kingdom remind us that the gap between the world that we have made for ourselves and the world that God would have us make can be bridged.  We can choose to live in accord with God’s promise of peace.  Indeed, when we live with faith and integrity as followers of Jesus, we invite God’s future into our present.  The peaceable kingdom awaits those who would serve it even now.

We can strive for the peace of our world.  We may not be able to bring Russia and Ukraine to the bargaining table, but we have worked for world peace all year long.  We have been seeking a path to bring an at-risk Afghan family from Kabul to America. We have provided much-needed care and support for vulnerable infants at the Crisis Care Nursery in Mzuzu. Through CROP Walk, we have sought to address the root causes of hunger around the globe with the programs of Church World Service.  This Christmas, we will bless our African neighbors with the gift of clean water as we receive a special offering for the Shallow Well program of Marion Medical Mission.  These are the things that make for world peace.

We can strive for the peace of our nation.  We may not be able to break the rancor and gridlock of Washington, but we can choose to make a personal difference for good.  We can refuse to call those whose opinions differ from ours “enemies.” Our dialog can be grounded in mutual respect, and we can keep the lines of communication open, even when we disagree.  We can practice non-violence and call on our elected officials to enact responsible gun legislation.  We can stand with vulnerable minorities and speak out against hateful speech that incites violence. These are the things that make for a more peaceful nation.

We can strive for the peace of our families.  This could be the year that we let bygones be bygones and reconcile with our estranged kin.  We can remember that God is at the heart of our marriage covenant and seek together to reclaim that holy center for our shared life.  We can meet those intractable family dysfunctions with love, openness, and a desire for change. Stop filling the glass of your drunken uncle.  Beg to differ with that hyper-critical parent.  Give your family shopaholic a copy of Bill McKibben’s book Hundred Dollar Holiday and encourage them to resist the relentless onslaught of commercials and catalogs that try to say Christmas is only Christmas if it comes from a store. These are the things that make for a more peaceful family.

This morning, we light the candle of peace and choose to live in accord with God’s promise of the peaceable kingdom.  Can you imagine it with me? 

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon us, with wisdom and understanding,

counsel and strength, knowledge and a healthy fear of the Lord.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation.

Ukraine and Russia, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, North and South Korea, all will come to the table of peace. 

The hungry shall be filled, refugees will be welcomed, vulnerable babies will be blessed,

and clean water shall flow down in an unstoppable tide.

Ears will be opened. Truth will be spoken. Democrats will break bread with Republicans,

Libertarians will find common cause with Progressives, and the DC gridlock shall come to an end. 

We’ll beat our guns into ploughshares, trade our hate speech for songs of praise, and all God’s people will know safety and dignity.

There will be a balm in Gilead for the healing of our families. 

We’ll reach out with a willingness to forgive and be forgiven, and the hatchet of enmity will be forever buried. 

We’ll renew our vows and honor our children.  We’ll love more.  We’ll forgive often.  We’ll judge less.

The land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water,

and all will be well in these holy mountains,

and all God’s people will say,

“Amen.”

Resources

Eli J. Finkel and Cynthia S. Wang. “The Political Divide in America Goes Beyond Polarization and Tribalism” Kellogg Insight, April 20, 2022. Accessed online at https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/

National Geographic Society. “Assyrian Empire.” In National Geographic Resource Library, May 20, 2022. Accessed online at https://education.nationalgeographic.org/

Fred Gaiser. “Commentary on Isaiah 11:1-9” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 9, 2007. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/

Barbara Lundblad. “Commentary on Isaiah 11:1-9” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 8, 2013. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/

Michael Chan. “Commentary on Isaiah 11:1-9” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 4, 2016. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/

Isaiah 11:1-9

11A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2The 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. 3His 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; 4but 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. 5Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. 6The 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. 7The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9They 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.

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