About 15 years ago, there was a rather popular commercial on TV, and it had several different versions of it. The core was fundamentally the same. There’s a fireplace scene in a nice, old kind of study room, and a dog walks in and lies down in front of the fireplace. Shortly thereafter a cat comes by and snuggles up to the dog and sits down on the rug as well and looks at the tree. Then a mouse scurries across the floor and nestles up to the cat and looks up at the tree. Then the commercial switches to a little girl outside a window looking in: it’s the three animals admiring the Christmas tree. And then the words “Peace on Earth” come up as a Christmas carol plays.
It’s a popular scene in modern-day depictions of what Christmas is: the three animals, normally at odds one with another, now find actual peace underneath the Christmas tree. And when it comes to movies and TV shows and songs and commercials like the one I just referenced, even the Old Testament lesson this morning comes across a bit like a fairy tale — or a lovely but mythical depiction of what life will be for us all in the future.
Isaiah chapter 11 is a chapter of prophecy. It is a look into the future. It was a look into the future for the people of the Old Testament at the time, and it is a look into the future for the people of the New Testament as well — those saints, namely you, who live through the tribulation and will one day rest in the grave awaiting the resurrection of the dead. It’s also a depiction, by the way, of what has already become a reality — the reality that Paul picks up in our Epistle lesson this morning, the one about unity and peace that we find in the true Christian church, in the body of Jesus Christ.
This is one of those chapters that is a “here and now” and “there and then” kind of prophecy. It’s also a prophecy written in Hebrew in a poetic style, and the key to understanding poetry is the context in which the poem is written and what it says. If we understand the surrounding verses — that which leads into it and that which follows it — we’ll always have a better idea of what, in this case, Isaiah is pointing to when he writes about vegetarian lions and domesticated bears and friendly cobras.
In the first verse of chapter 11, Isaiah prophesied this way: “Then a shoot will spring forth from Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.” See, by the time of Christ’s incarnation, the line — the descendant line of Jesse, Jesse’s son King David’s father — had been reduced to virtually nothing: a stump, a dead one at that, at least that’s what everyone thought. The Davidic monarchy had been conquered by such empires as the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans. All took their turn in invading, conquering, and dominating the Hebrew people, the children of God. Century after century went by, and no sign of a new king — let alone one that comes from the line of David.
By the time of the birth of Christ, there’s no sign at all. There’s no hope at all that somehow the Hebrew nation would be rescued from the oppression of the Romans and the theocracy of the Old Testament re-established again. But then, as one of our good Christian hymns declares: “Lo, how a rose e’er blooming, from tender stem hath sprung, of Jesse’s lineage coming, as prophets long have sung.” Next, Isaiah tells us that once born, there’s going to be something utterly unique about this child, this man: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” This will mark this child from the time He is born until the time He ascends into the heavenly realm. That is: this child will be, in fact, different than all the other men and women ever born and conceived in the world — that His relationship to the Spirit will be fundamentally different, and it will have fruit.
So first he prophesies of the birth of the promised Messiah, the shoot from Jesse. Then he testifies to a public witness of the Holy Spirit upon the person and work of Jesus Christ, which happened at Jesus’s baptism: the Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove. But when Jesus came out of the water, the Spirit did not leave Him. Rather, the Spirit led Him into the wilderness to be tempted three times by the devil. And once out of the wilderness — Luke 4:1: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness.”
Shortly after emerging from the wilderness temptations, Jesus begins teaching, and the people are amazed at His understanding — at what He understood from the biblical text and how He explained it, just as they were in the temple when He was 13 years old. It led people, every time they had a conversation with this child, this young man, to ask: How did He get to be so wise? How did He come to such a deep understanding of the biblical text? Matthew 13:54: “Where did this man acquire this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” That was the question from people in His own hometown.
Throughout his book, Isaiah paints a picture of the incarnate Christ and of His saving ministry. He teaches us, before Christ is even born, that He’d be despised and abandoned by men — a man of great pain and familiar with sickness. Isaiah describes the promised Messiah as the suffering Messiah. His face, His appearance is marred. He is stricken, smitten, and afflicted (Isaiah 53:4). He’s wounded and bruised (53:5), beaten with stripes. His brow was pierced with a crown of thorns. He was struck on the head with a reed. His beard is plucked (Isaiah 50:6). He’s beaten with a Roman whip. He’s crucified with His hands and feet driven through by nails. His side is pierced by a sword. We get a rather detailed prophecy, when we collect all those things from the Old Testament — especially from the book of Isaiah — of who Christ would be: the Son of God, Emmanuel, with us; and what He would do: save us from our sins; and how He would accomplish it: by His perfect obedience, His brutal suffering and death, and then His resurrection on Easter morning.
This morning’s reading, verses 3 through 5: “He shall not judge by what His eyes see, nor decide disputes by what His ears hear, but 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. Righteousness shall be the belt around His waist, and faithfulness the belt around His loins.”
As for Christ’s mission: what did He come to do? He came to establish peace between God and man. And that was the angel’s declaration on that very first Christmas night, as the shepherds abided in their fields at night, and the angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone all around them, and they were terrified. And the angel said: “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which shall be for all people. For today in the city of David there is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” — that is, the stem of Jesse. “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth among those with whom He is pleased.”
Christ, you see, is the bearer of peace. It’s what He came to do. It’s what He came to accomplish — for the whole world. But those who reject God’s grace, His reconciliation, those who continue to wage war against God, they will be put to shame. The sinful world’s rejection of His peace is no negation of what Christ actually came and did. His peace, you see, is part of Him. It’s what He wears around Him. The peace that is established by Christ is never overthrown. It will not wane. It will not pass away. Because His peace is exactly a byproduct of His righteousness and His faithfulness. “Righteousness shall be the belt around His waist, and faithfulness the belt around His loins.” It’s simply part of what He is. It’s part of His office. It’s what He does. His righteousness and faithfulness keep the peace that God has established — the peace Christ has established between you and God.
Ephesians 2:13-14: “Now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.” That’s what He came to do. He came to break down the hostility that you had before God, and that God had before you under the Law. He establishes peace, and He establishes a unity. And that peace and unity is not merely something in the future — it’s here and now in true Christian churches.
750 years before the birth of Christ, Isaiah foretells the coming of Christ. He describes how Christ brings the peace: namely, through His perfect life, His suffering, His atoning death, and His resurrection. Then he goes on to describe in a poetic fashion, in this opening section of chapter 11 — he goes on to describe what this peace looks like, what Christ actually has accomplished for you in the here and now. And it is “now and not yet.” It’s the realm of peace. Listen to how he says it again: the fellowship, the nation, the children of God, the people who trust in Christ are like this: “A wolf will dwell with the lamb, a leopard will lie down with the young goat, a calf and a young lion and a fatling all together, and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze; their young will lie down together. The lion will eat straw like an ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of a cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand in a viper’s den. They will not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
See, in Christ’s kingdom there are no mountains. In Christ there is no “us versus them.” There’s only the safety of the Holy Christian Church. That’s what Isaiah is saying when he’s talking about these vegetarian lions and everybody else in there: that the hostility, the blood, and the death that marks our sinful and fallen world passes away. It tames us. No longer are we feral animals anymore. We’re no longer feral sinners — wolves and lions and bears dwelling alongside the lambs and calves and goats. Animals won’t feed on the flesh and blood of other animals. Instead they go to pastures; they eat straw. In that life there’ll be no manifestation of sin, no curse, no struggle with the ground, no strife, no violence, no murderers, no death. The feral creatures will all be gone, and only the tame in Christ are left.
Isaiah is not simply addressing wildlife, or the new creation that will come. He’s using this as a metaphor for us. We are the feral and savage creatures in chapter 11. We are the ones who tear and rip apart. We are the ones who wage war and conflict. We are the ones that spread gossip and viciousness and violence and conflict. But in the resurrection of the dead, we will see the reality with our own eyes — the reality that’s declared of us now: that we are holy and peaceful ones, loving ones, of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
This is not only a description of what life will be like in heaven. It is now what Christ sees when He looks upon you here in the church. This is what the church of Christ looks like even now. Here we get a glimpse of what will be in its fullness in the life of the world to come.
Isaiah’s metaphor applies to the peace that Christian churches enjoy this very moment — that every congregation that truly lives in the Word of God is at peace with itself and one another. But there are, of course, false Christians. We still have our own blemishes and scars and marks. But yet Christ brings peace to us: to live together, to care and to love one another.
The wild beasts are pictures of what human nature is really like out of the womb. And history testifies to the truth that human beings — every single one of them, with the exception of Jesus Christ — has been and will continue to be feral, unless the old is killed and the new comes to life. Colossians 1:21-22: “Although you were previously alienated and hostile in your attitude, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His body of flesh through death, in order to present you before Him as holy and blameless and beyond reproach.”
You see, the miracle of a vegetarian lion is nothing compared to what Christ has done for you. He frees you from the guilt of sin. He gives you a heart that no longer wants to sin, but instead wants to live a God-pleasing life. He gives you a heart that wants to be reconciled to those who are estranged. He has created a new nature, a new heart. Even though sin still clings to us, we don’t cling to it. Our deepest desire — the deepest desire of every single true Christian — is to love God, please God, and to serve our neighbors in true love.
To be sure, even the bride of Christ, with all of her spots and wrinkles — it’s something easy to see. But Christ does not judge by what He sees and what He hears. He judges by what He has done, what He’s given to you. He washes His church daily in the waters of repentance. He washes you in the blood of the Lamb. We who have been won by the Gospel, we who believe in Christ and serve Him, lay aside our feral natures, die to self, and daily strive to put on the new self — the one born without wrath or malice or bitterness or jealousy. Ephesians 4:22 and following: with reference to your former way of life, “you are to rid yourself of your old self, be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and in holiness of the truth.”
See, instead of doing harm to one another, we really do want to do good. This is not of us and not of ourselves. And we try not to divide the church between “we” and “they.” There’s no Jew nor Greek, nor slave nor free, nor male nor female — in Christ we are all one and part of one body. When one part hurts, we all hurt. That’s the image. That’s the message of Isaiah chapter 11.
He’s portraying a way of life that we in ourselves do not know, but which is given to us in the person and work of Christ, delivered to us in the waters of Holy Baptism. We have it in a little measure now, but this peace will be perfected in the life of the world to come. For we’re told: “They will not hurt or destroy in all of My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then in that day the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand as a signal, as a sign for all the peoples, and His resting place will be glorious.”
And so will you. You, in the life of the world to come, will be a glorious creature: love, hope, devotion to one another, to Christ — a peaceful and glorious being. For your sins are forgiven. Amen.
May the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.