Our hearts are strangely stirred this week as we our preparation continues this Advent, this season of peace. It is closely linked to our preparation in last week’s look at hope. Our hearts truly long for peace on earth, yet it has been an anything but peaceful week in our world. Perhaps your life was touched by the tragic news of our neighbor Nate loosing his legs in Iraq, or perhaps you’ve been moved by the national scene where the search for Stacy Peterson is eclipsed by a 19 year old’s act of desperation, killing several in an Omaha mall before taking his own life. We are daily reminded of our world’s desperate need for hope, and our short supply of peace.

Hear the Word of the Lord as we continue our “Advent with Isaiah.” Isaiah 11.1-10. Hear the Word of the Lord.

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This is one of the most vivid images of the kingdom of God given to us in all of scripture. It is also one of my favorites. How could you not like it? New life springing from a rotten stump; wisdom and righteousness and justice; and O, the peace! The wolf and the lamb live together; the leopard and goat rest together; the lion and the calf are friends; the cow and the bear graze together; the baby plays safely with the most feared snake; nothing will hurt or destroy on God’s holy mountain. It is so vivid and so beautiful. It is full of hope for a world of perfect peace. It is so idealistic – so surreal… perhaps even unreal.

We look back from our 21st century perspective and read Isaiah’s oracle as a foreshadowing of the coming of Christ. It might do us some good to take a look at life in Judah, where Isaiah lived, as we try to understand Isaiah’s oracle of peace. Judah has been around for a while. It has seen its share of kings. With each king comes a new sense of hope for a good world. The new king is anointed as God’s chosen leader. The new king is exalted as the one the Lord has anointed to lead his people. But, with each king comes just another disappointment. King after king, after king, fails to live up to the hope Judah had in their new kings reign. With every new king, the hopes that maybe this one will be different are rekindled. But soon those hopes are dashed, as the royal line of David looks less and less like a tree trunk that give life to all the twigs and leaves and nuts. Instead it increasingly looks like a dead and rotting stump, with no sign of life at all.

Does that sound at all familiar to any of us? Of course it does. It happens every four years here in America. We are smack in the middle of it right now. Women and men of every persuasion gather on stages across the country to convince us that they are the one who will bring change. They are the one who can restore American trust in the government. They are the one we should elect. We all buy it. We all line up behind the one we believe will return America to whatever it is we think it ought to be. We get all excited, our hope is renewed that this new president will finally be the one to bring peace to the middle east, the one who will finally bring the jobs back home, the one who will restore the educational system, reform the tax system, and repair the broken bureaucracy. Then our candidate wins, we are excited. Time wears on, the reality of our system take over, and this president, who was the ONE, is just another in the long line of disappointments. Our world and theirs are not so far apart.

It is in the midst of this cycle that Isaiah pens this oracle of peace. Many suggest that this oracle was a song of anointing used at the coronation of King Hezekiah. The line of David, that has grown to look like nothing more than a dead stump, is giving life yet again. A new branch has grown. The oracle then is seen as a song, a prayer, that this king, who God raised up, who God called out, and who God set apart might be the kind of leader the world really needs. This vision, this song, this prayer that at first glance seemed so idealistic, so surreal, even so unreal and impossible now seems much closer. Isaiah is not proclaiming, “Someday we believe God will do this.” Quite the contrary. Isaiah is suggesting that this is what God expects out of this king that is being crowned. It was not to be a distant hope; it was to be a divine expectation. It was not out there; it was right there.

The expectation was that God-raised leaders would be marked by the Spirit of the Lord. They would have notable gifts of the Spirit: wisdom… understanding… counsel… might… knowledge of the Lord… fear of the Lord. It was expected that those God chose to lead his world, God would also equip with the gifts necessary for being the king.

The expectation was that God-raised leaders would use their giftedness to reign according to God’s values. They would be obedient to God’s direction. They would be just as God is just, seeking first the wellbeing of the poor and the oppressed, the widow and the orphan. They would speak and act with the authority of God against all evil. They would be known for truthfulness and righteousness. It was expected that the divinely given gifts of the Spirit would be used to rule in God’s place, with God’s character, according to God’s values.

The expectation was that divinely gifted kings, ruling as God would rule, would lead Judah into a golden era of peace where all types of natural enemies would live together in peace. Wolves, leopards, lions, bears, O My! Those are pretty mean characters. They make a quick snack out of little things like baby sheep, baby goats, and baby cows. Yet, here they are living together, resting together, eating with each other, befriending each other. The most natural of opponents become the most natural of allies. Even people and snakes (which –if you remember the creation story - are divinely made enemies) are safe from one another. It was expected that the result of divine gifting and just ruling would initiate a peaceful reign.

So, how’d that work out for Judah? How’d that work out for Israel? Never did that divine expectation come to pass. The stump just got larger and deader, and the hope of a peaceful world died with it. Some unfortunate soul had the task of keeping an eye on the stump. The only life ever seen on the stump of the tree of Jesse was a bunch of moss covering one side of it like a velvet burbur, and the occasional creepy-crawler scurrying from one hole to the next.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the moss parted. Could it be? Could the impossible be once again possible? At Christmas, we celebrate the coming of God to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ brought hope to the world. Hope for peace. The good news for today’s world is that God sent us a king who fulfills all the messianic expectations. The challenge is that Christ came and passed on his rule to us.

At the beginning, we noted the similarity of the despair and hopelessness Judah felt with their kings and that we often feel with our presidents. There is a glaring difference. God raised up Judah’s kings to carry out his rule, he did not however, raise up the American Presidents to carry out his rule. God raised up his church to lead the world to him. Christ was divinely gifted by the Spirit of God, at Pentecost that gifting was passed on to us. Christ revealed to us God’s plan for leading: with obedience, justice, righteousness. Those same mandates are passed on to us. In Christ, we, like all of Judah’s kings of old, have each been raised up and called out and set apart to do Christ’s work bringing reconciliation and peace to the world.

During this season of peace, the degree to which Isaiah’s vision of peace becomes reality is largely dependent on us. How will we lead the world?

Will we lead with obedience? Total obedience? Remember, obedience cost Christ his life. To what extent will we obey?

Will we lead with justice? Not the justice of this world that seeks vengeance and revenge? Christ showed us that justice means leveling the playing field: giving a voice to the voiceless, giving hope to the hopeless, caring for those the world has forgotten, and lifting up those the world beats down. Whose justice will we seek?

Will we lead with righteousness? Not self-righteousness, not works’ righteousness. Christ showed us the way of righteousness is faithfulness, humility, sacrifice, service. We are righteous only because he is righteous. We are righteous only as we are in him? Whose righteousness will we embody?

We all long for peace, but are we willing to work for it? We all long for peace, but what are we willing to sacrifice for it? The good news this morning is that Christ came, and made the supreme sacrifice that we might have peace. The challenge this morning is going and being agents of Christ’s peace in the world. Some say that peace is impossible. I say God becoming human is impossible. I say virgin births are impossible. I say living a 100% sinless life is impossible. I say resurrection is impossible. But I also say in Christ the impossible becomes very possible. So let us join, this season of peace, join with all Christ’s people all around the world and with all the angels of heaven in the age old song of “peace on earth, good will to all the people of the earth!” To the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.