Advent 2 Peace

 Isaiah 11:1-10 Advent 2 – Peace December 7, 2025

 

When we say peace, we can mean a couple of things.

Peace can be an inner feeling, a calm

a sense of well-being and comfort.

You can feel  peace in the middle of chaos,

when things are going terribly.

People have often told me that during times of great

upheaval and illness and uncertainty, that’s when

they have felt a sense of peace and known it was God’s presence.

 

But peace is also the absence of conflict.

Either on a personal level or on a community

or national level.

Basically, a lack of war.

 

The bible uses peace in both of these ways.

And it’s sometimes difficult to know which one

the passage is talking about.

Many times it seems like our inner peace

proceeds from peace in the home or in the world.

And many times it seems like peace in the

world proceeds from our inner peace.

Which comes first, peace or peace?

 

Many of us have experienced inner peace.

It may come and go for us, but a lot of us know the feeling.

But in our lifetime, this world and our country

has never been at peace that is a lack of war for very long.

 

Since 1776, in the 249 years since this

country was founded, the US has had,

technically, only  had 21 years of actual peace.

The other 228 years we have been

engaged in some sort of military conflict.

The longest stretch of peace for the United States,

was after World War I and during the depression.

But when we think about that time in history, it does not seem peaceful.

There might have been a lack of direct military activity on our part,

but everything else seemed to be in upheaval.

 

 There were awful things happening in Europe,

And fascist regimes were a constant threat for the US.

And ironically we remember this all today on the anniversary of the

Attack on Pearl Harbor which led us into World War 2.

But maybe it’s not ironic, because almost every day is a day

of some military significance.

 

For almost all of its existence, this country has been

involved in one war or another.

And it’s the same for much of the rest of the world.

Even though we are all, as a whole, doing much better

than any time in its entire history, our nations still have a

tendency towards violence when it comes to disagreements.

Whether it’s drone strikes, or bombings, armed interventions,

or encouraging and funding other countries to carry them out.

 

And because of that, whether we know it or not, we have always been

at a heightened state of alert and worry

about current or potential violent conflict.

Even more so if you have a loved one who is

in the area of conflict or in the military.

 

And I think it’s safe to say that that heightened state

of alert and anxiety has contributed to the tension and anxiety

inside our country – in the rampant gun violence, mass shootings,

and even the polarization in our politics and threat of violence.

 

When we are always on the lookout for an enemy,

then anyone foreign to us can seem like an enemy.

We have learned to be fearful of anything different.

And fear often leads to aggression.

 

Our lack of inner peace has lead to a lack of outer peace.

And our lack of outer peace has lead to a lack of inner peace.

Peace and peace go hand in hand.

 

During Isaiah’s time and for the whole of its history,

Israel was in an even worse situation of constant war.

Israel itself was not itself a very powerful nation,

not a super-power like the United States by any means.

 

Actually, it was rather insignificant globally.

But, geographically, Israel was between super-powers.

It was on the path to get to one place from another.

So it was always stuck between nations

that seemed to be in constant struggles for power:

Assyria, Canaan, Hittite, Babylonia, Egypt, Persia

So someone was always beating up on Israel to get to someone else.

 

So, Israel was in a state of war more than it was at peace too,

the scriptures certainly reflect that.

And no doubt that affected their personal relationships

and the state of their homes and communities too.

Their state of alert was very high, and

they experienced this violence first-hand –

it wasn’t seen on TV or heard of in some far off place.

It was in their own backyards and their front yards.

 

They knew as well how difficult outer peace

was to achieve too.

Each side has to want it at the same time,

the other entities have to be willing participants.

And peace takes a great deal of vulnerability,

It takes admitting  wrong, hearing the other parties admission,

accepting those admissions, and promising to change.

In other words, confession, repentance and forgiveness.

There is a lot of risk in even beginning the process of peace.

 

And a lot can go wrong when there is distrust,

and language differences, and a tradition of hatred.

This is true of global wars and wars in neighborhoods and families too.

 

And if we think of our own country and times,

Even if we don’t have a reason for war,

there is so much of our lives and our economy

that is built around war and militarism.

 

There are millions of jobs, so much income in weapons,

industries and companies that are built around war.

So many people have built careers around war,

many people find personal fulfillment and a sense of

belonging in their job in the military.

 

Military spending in the US in 2024 was $820 billion dollars

An enormous amount of money.

Many people have a financial investment

in staying at war or near war.

If we had an extended time of peace,

that would mean dismantling much of this infrastructure

and it would cause a great upheaval in many lives.

There is a lot working against outer peace.

It’s actually easier to stay at war.

Frankly, it’s kind of an addiction.

 

It seems like a great knot that can’t be un-tied

and true peace, inner and outer, seems like an impossibility.

I’m sure that peace for Israel seemed impossible

in Isaiah’s time too.

 

But still, with all of these difficulties in place,

Isaiah and the other prophets and religious leaders

promised that God would, one day, bring peace.

 

Chances are that Isaiah was writing his prophecies

during one of Israel’s times of  war and siege

in the 700’s.  The powerful Assyrian army

stormed through Israel five times,

reaping terror and destruction where it went.

 

And yet, in the middle of that destruction,

Isaiah paints one of the most famous passages of the Hebrew Scriptures :

The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the goat;
the calf and the lion together,
and a little child shall lead them.

 

It’s a beautiful image.

But if it happened now in our current world, as one comedian said,

“The wolf can lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.”

Predators do what predators do.

Isaiah’s image is not possible now.

Isaiah is describing something far deeper

than a photo-op with natural enemies sitting politely together.

This is a change in the very order of things.

The powerful no longer threaten the vulnerable.

The weak no longer live in fear.

It is a world where violence is no longer the default setting.

 

These animals are, of course, metaphors for human life—

for our power struggles, our conflicts, and our habits of harm.

Isaiah imagines an end to that dynamic that has shaped our world.

Isaiah is imagining peace.

Outer peace brought on by inner peace.

Or inner peace brought on by outer peace.

 

And this world of peace is brought about by a child—

a shoot from the stump of Jesse, a descendant of David.

 

David was a warrior king, but from his line will come a king

who brings peace not through force,

but through justice and righteousness.

 

As Martin Luther King Jr. said,

“Peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.”

 

Real peace doesn’t come simply because people stop fighting.

Real peace comes when oppression ends,

when poverty is addressed,

when the rights of all people are honored.

 

Isaiah’s vision is not just about better

diplomacy or human self-control.

It is about a transformed creation—

hearts and minds reshaped by God.

This is more than humanity alone can accomplish.

 

This is the work of the Messiah.

The one we believe has come to us in Jesus Christ.

Jesus teaches us the ways of peace:

justice, understanding, openness, forgiveness, repentance.

These are the practices that create inner peace—

and they are the same practices that create outer peace.

 

We have not yet learned these ways fully.

But Christ shows us the path.

 

One day, God’s way will be born in all of us,

and that will bring true peace to the world.

And the choices we make now— how we live,

how we interact with strangers, how we seek justice—

are the building blocks of that eternal peace.

 

The promise of Isaiah is still ours: A little child will lead us.

Peace will come to this war-torn world.

And that promise can give us inner peace even now.