the Prophet Isaiah

Come, Let Us Walk in the Light

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Come, Let Us Walk in the Light” Isaiah 2:1-5

It was a tough Thanksgiving for Sharon and Tim. Family gathered from far and wide. The food was delicious. Laughter sounded around the table. Everyone cheered and jeered in goodhearted rivalry as the Detroit Lions took on the Green Bay Packers. It was a special day. But Sharon and Tim couldn’t help but think about who was not there. Kyle, their oldest son, doesn’t come to Thanksgiving or Christmas or any of those special family gatherings anymore. It started with a rift over Kyle’s decision to quit school and the division seems to grow wider with the years.

For Henry, the best part about the long Thanksgiving weekend is not going to the office. His workplace has become increasingly polarized along the dividing lines of our national political landscape. His MAGA colleagues rejoice in every tweet that emerges from the oval office while the progressives cheer for their champion from across Lake Champlain Bernie Sanders. Henry tries to stay out of it, but he has found that he has few friends. He’d quit, but he needs the paycheck, and good jobs are hard to find, especially in the Adirondacks.

Jen has been thinking about her former best friend Cynthia. Friends since high school, Jen and Cynthia had a Black Friday tradition. They would rise early, take the Northway south, and do their Christmas shopping at the Colonie Center. After crossing everyone off their gift list, they would enjoy an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory before heading home, the car filled with presents and the Christmas music blaring on the stereo. But when Cynthia married someone whom Jen didn’t like, the two had a falling out that never healed. Jen misses their friendship and Black Friday tradition.

The Thanksgiving holiday makes us aware of the ways that we have been blessed. God has been so good to us. Yet Thanksgiving and the coming Christmas holiday also draw our attention to the painful holes, protracted conflicts, and disappointing absences in our lives. We long for wholeness, for the peace that only Jesus can bring. We long to walk in his light.

The Prophet Isaiah knew that sense of longing. In his decades-long ministry, Isaiah endured the turbulent rule of four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah.  Judah’s leaders were a selfish and short-sighted lot, more concerned with preserving their personal power than honoring God or protecting the people. They failed to defend the orphan or hear the pleas of widows. They ground the face of the poor into the dust. God expected justice from Judah’s rulers, but saw only bloodshed. Judah’s kings played dangerous games of shifting alliances between the reigning superpowers of their day. First, King Ahaz conspired with the Assyrians to undermine and overthrow his kin in the Northern Kingdom. Then, Hezekiah formed a secret alliance with Egypt. When Hezekiah’s double dealing came to light, the Assyrian armies rolled over Judah. Forty-six fortified cities were destroyed, and Jerusalem was encircled. Hezekiah and his people were imprisoned within a city under siege.

Into this time of suffering and violence, Isaiah shared God’s radically hopeful vision of Jerusalem. Instead of laying siege to Jerusalem, the nations of the world made a holy pilgrimage to the city. The roads thronged with people: rich and poor, young and old, sinners and saints. They walked in worn sandals. They rode opulently saddled camels. They strode with the vigor of youth. They leaned on canes and limped with the creaky joints of age. They carried babies on their hips. They sang songs of peace, “I ain’t gonna study war no more” and “Imagine all the people living life in peace.” Sounds of excitement, laughter, and hope could be heard along the way. Neighbor called to neighbor, “Come, let us go up to Jerusalem! Let us learn from God.”

When they reached the holy city, the people found that it was not ruled by Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, or Hezekiah. On the contrary, God was sovereign there, and God was cleaning house, ending years of injustice and oppression, judging between the nations and arbitrating for the people. There was peace and a new beginning for all God’s children. Jerusalem’s center of industry was no longer the privileged elite who built fortunes on the backs of the poor. Now, the most sought-after tradespeople were the blacksmiths. Their forges glowed red-hot, night and day. Their hammers rang out and sparks rose up in fiery showers as they beat the instruments of death into the tools of life. Swords became plowshares, spears became pruning hooks. Tanks turned to combines. AK-47s, Kalashnikovs, and Uzis transformed to hoes, rakes, and cultivators. What a lovely luminous vision held out to people living in dark times! O house of Jacob!  Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

As we hear Isaiah’s prophecy, we feel a terrible tension between what is and what could be, between the corruption and political intrigue of ancient Judah and God’s holy hope for Jerusalem. We know, too, the tension of Isaiah’s vision for our own lives and times, the tension between the brokenness of our families, workplaces, and friendships and the ways that God would have us live. Isaiah’s vision is a powerful and enduring invitation to faithful people to be grounded in and directed by God, to choose once and for all to walk in God’s light, to live into God’s good vision for a healed world where differences are overcome by an irresistible, holy love.

This Sunday, as we remember Isaiah’s vision and begin the season of Advent, anticipating the light of Christ that shines in our world’s darkness, we are invited to be agents of Isaiah’s vision of peace and transformation in our own communities and within our own families. This is the really hard part. Change begins here, within our heart of hearts, as we allow God’s love and grace to heal old hurts and turn us to one another with a spirit of forgiveness and forbearance. To walk in the light, we must first allow it to shine within us and transform us. Then, we must be willing to allow that light to shine through us to our neighbors, knowing that we are one and all God’s beloved children. 

There is the famous story of a wise old Rabbi who taught his students by asking them questions.  “How can a person tell when the darkness ends and the day begins?” he asked. After thinking 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 smiled and 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 or sister, the darkness has not yet begun to lift, and the light has not yet come.”  Come, let us walk in the light.

On this first Sunday of Advent, perhaps we could follow in Isaiah’s footsteps and cast our own vision of the world that we can make if only we will choose to walk in the light. It will be a world where we love God and we love one another as we love ourselves. It will be a world where we will even dare to love our enemies and pray for those who have persecuted us. It will be a world where we will turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, and forgive as we have been forgiven. The sharp barbs of our personal criticisms will be transformed to words of encouragement and praise. The battle lines of our political landscape will unravel at the table of peace. The sticks of insults hurled and stones of promises broken will fall powerless at the feet of unstoppable love. We will truly see one another as brothers, sisters all.

It’s a world where family rifts will come to an end, and Sharon and Tim will share Thanksgiving dinner with Kyle. It’s a world where toxic politics are set aside in favor of the common good, and Henry will like his job again. It’s a world where friendships endure despite personal differences, and Jen and Cynthia will celebrate the conclusion of their Black Friday shopping over a piece of Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake. It’s a world where we put God at the center of it all, and we learn to live by the words that Jesus taught. Can we dare to dream it?

O house of Jacob!  Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Resources

Corinne Carvalho. “Commentary on Isaiah 2:1-5” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 30, 2025. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-of-advent/commentary-on-isaiah-21-5-7

Joel Kemp. “Commentary on Isaiah 2:1-5” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 27, 2022. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-of-advent/commentary-on-isaiah-21-5-6

Anathea Portier-Young. “Commentary on Isaiah 2:1-5” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 28, 2010. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-of-advent/commentary-on-isaiah-21-5

Fred Gaiser. “Commentary on Isaiah 2:1-5” in Preaching This Week, Dec. 2, 2007. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-of-advent/commentary-on-isaiah-21-5-2

The traditional story of the wise rabbi is from Dennis Bratcher “Hope!” www.cresourcei.org

Isaiah 2:1-5

2 The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

2 In days to come
    the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
    and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
3     Many peoples shall come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction
    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
4 He shall judge between the nations
    and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
    neither shall they learn war any more.
5 O house of Jacob,
    come, let us walk
in the light of the Lord!

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The Beautiful Feast

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “The Beautiful Feast” Isaiah 25:6-9

In October, we revived the pre-pandemic tradition of Committee Night, a monthly evening when the committees of the church gather. The evening begins at 5:30pm with a potluck supper. You never know what will turn up on the dinner table, but it is always good and plentiful. Last week, we had homemade soup, bread, charcuterie, fresh and dried fruit, salad, and a host of desserts, including not one but two birthday cakes for me. What a feast!

We typically transition from the dinner table to our small workgroups around 6:00pm. But as we laughed, swapped stories, and enjoyed the meal, time, as it often does when there is good food and good company, slipped away. About 6:20, I reluctantly shifted us from feast mode to work mode. Committees met, plans were made, and tasks assigned, all in time for choir practice to start at 7pm. That potluck meal felt like a victory as we shrugged off the vestiges of the COVID-19 pandemic and returned to right rhythms of eating, caring, and serving together.

In our reading from Isaiah, God granted the prophet a vision of the beautiful feast in the Kingdom of God. The table overflowed with sumptuous food and the finest of wine. The people of Israel and all the nations of the world rejoiced, feeding on the bounty that God had prepared. Every belly was full, every face flushed with satisfaction. The sound of laughter and song and heartfelt conversation rose in a blessed crescendo. Almighty God, that most generous and loving of hosts, met every hunger, dried every tear, and comforted every sorrow. Then, God had God’s own feast, to the amazement of all. God swallowed up death, ending forever the mortal shroud that parted the holy from the ordinary. What a feast! Isaiah’s vision has prompted hope and delight ever since.

This church is no stranger to the hope and delight that our beautiful feasts can engender. Back in 1927, we called the Rev. Hiram Lyon to serve as our pastor. The recent seminary graduate was a young bachelor with a flair for cooking. On several occasions, he put on summer dinners at Split Rock Farm for the church’s Men’s Club. We don’t know the menu, but since it was a bunch of guys, I think we can trust that there was grilling involved. There is a record, though, of what happened after dinner. The men sat around the campfire until late in the evening, watching the moon rise and the night fall. They pondered the billion stars of the Milky Way and the great mystery of the divine.

Perhaps the church’s fanciest feast took place in 1985. We had building on our minds—the extension of the church to create the Great Hall and the Christian Education classrooms. To share plans and kick-off the church’s fundraising efforts, we hosted a dinner at the Hotel Saranac. Invitations were mailed. Neighbors from the community were invited. I hear the food was excellent and the hall filled with hopeful expectation as we dreamed together about the blessing that would flow for us and for the community when our building effort reached completion.

I may be a little biased, but I think Duane’s and my wedding reception in the Great Hall, almost nineteen years ago now, was another echo of the beautiful feast. It wasn’t fancy. The deacons cooked up seven crockpots of soup. Duane and I provided an abundance of sandwich wraps, cheese and crackers, punch, and a fabulous wedding cake made by Dawne’s sister. Duane’s friends came all the way from Virginia to provide bluegrass music. Little girls twirled around the dancefloor in their princess dresses. And, the golden girls of the United Presbyterian Women sampled and provided commentary on every single soup. What a feast!

It might surprise us to learn that when Isaiah shared God’s hopeful vision of the holy banquet, the Hebrew people didn’t have a lot to celebrate. Gone were the days of unity for the twelve tribes. The northern clans had long ago split to form the Kingdom of Israel. The southern tribes confederated under the banner of Judah. Waves of foreign invasion had wracked the two kingdoms. Indeed, when Isaiah spoke, the northern kingdom had fallen to the Assyrians. Many of their northern kin had been deported, sent to the far corners of the Assyrian Empire. The invaders had almost vanquished Judah, too. They encamped around the walls of Jerusalem and sought to starve the kingdom into submission. Only the forethought of King Hezekiah, whose men had tunneled beneath the city walls to allow access to fresh water and supplies, allowed the hungry city to outlast the siege. As Isaiah spoke the vision of God’s beautiful feast, foreign invaders were again on the horizon. The Babylonian army was rising in the east in what would prove to be an unstoppable tide.

Our beautiful feasts don’t happen in a perfect world. When Hiram Lyon hosted those starry suppers for the Men’s Club, Saranac Lake was at the height of the tuberculosis pandemic. Sanatoriums and cure cottages overflowed with desperately sick neighbors who had come to our village in the hope of a cold air cure. Hiram Lyon knew all about that. He came to the village as a tuberculosis patient, having contracted the disease while a student at Union Seminary in Morningside Heights, NYC. He stayed in the village to pastor our church for ten years and minister to the sick whose experience he had shared.

When we banqueted at the Hotel Saranac and dreamed of a bigger, better building, we weren’t too certain about the future. The church’s Christian Education building—Gurley Hall—had originally been built as a stable and had not withstood the test of time. Under-insulated and poorly heated, it was no longer fit for classes or community use, and our efforts to excavate below the sanctuary to create the Lower Room hadn’t provided nearly enough space for our programs. We were renting space from St. Luke’s and the Methodists. In fact, we debated closing our doors and merging with our neighbors. And then there was the matter of funding. Someone—probably Sally’s husband Bill—had the vision to build, but we definitely didn’t have the money.

When Duane and I danced a bluegrass waltz and the children blew bubbles to bless us in the Great Hall on our wedding day, the church had been through bleak times. There was a full-blown schism with the departure of Pastor Chuck, and we had weathered a lengthy interim with the tough but wise Pastor Carol. People had left the church. We were plagued by poor communication and rival factions. I had inherited a $45,000 budget deficit. We would either make it or we wouldn’t, but we needed to turn the corner fast.

Isaiah’s vision affirms that our beautiful feasts do not happen in a perfect world where everything is blue skies, sunshine, and lollipops. It also affirms that God is present in the midst of our chaos. God longs to feed us, nurture us, dry our tears, and comfort us. The world is filled with war and the threat of war, pandemics, declining mainline churches, and bitter divisions. Yet Isaiah reminds us that God is more than a match for our chaos. God is in the middle of it, fighting to deliver us from all that makes our hearts tremble. Indeed, the God who swallows death whole has raised Jesus from the dead and broken down every barrier that can ever separate us from God’s eternal, unstoppable love. One day, we will all be seated at God’s table, bellies full, laughter ringing, conversation flowing, joy complete. What a feast!

Today, we will celebrate our own feast, here at the Lord’s Table, where generations of Presbyterians have been fed. Our beautiful feast does not happen in a perfect world. Bombs are falling in the Middle East. Children are starving in Gaza and Yemen, Afghanistan and Congo, Somalia and Sudan. We are days away from a hotly contested election that will leave at least half of our neighbors bitterly disappointed, no matter what the outcome. Yet we dare to come to this table, to remember that God is with us even when the world is at its most chaotic. God longs to comfort the grieving, feed the hungry, and dry the tears that flow. The Lord holds out to us the hope that one day all people, all nations, will gather at God’s banquet table—peaceful, beloved, and satisfied. Lord, speed the day!

This morning, like Isaiah, we engage in a prophetic act. As we share the Lord’s Supper, and we pledge our gifts to support the church in the coming year, we acknowledge that we do not live in a perfect world. But with God’s help, we can nudge this world a little closer to the Kingdom. With God’s help, we can live with hope and delight. With God’s help, we can feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and bless the children. With God’s help, we can build a world where all are welcomed to the table. What a feast it will be! Amen.

Resources

Evelyn Outcalt and Judy Kratts. A History of the First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake, written in celebration of the church’s centenary, July 25, 1990.

Anathea Portier-Young. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 1, 2015. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Amy Erickson. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 4, 2012. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Julianna Claasens. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 1, 2009. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Corinne Carvalho. “Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 7, 2021. Accessed online at Commentary on Isaiah 25:6-9 – Working Preacher from Luther Seminary

Isaiah 25:6-9

6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples
    a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines,
    of rich food filled with marrow, of well-aged wines strained clear.
7 And he will destroy on this mountain
    the shroud that is cast over all peoples,
    the covering that is spread over all nations;
8     he will swallow up death forever.
Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
    and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth,
    for the Lord has spoken.
9 It will be said on that day,
    “See, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.
    This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
    let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

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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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