Sunday, December 7
Suggested Readings:
In Isaiah 11, we find a colorful and biologically diverse picture of the world at peace. When the hoped-for Messiah comes, the prophet tells us, “the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat…” (Isaiah 11:6). In this vision of the “peaceable kingdom,” as it is sometimes called, the fierce hostility between predator and prey has been dissolved, replaced with a nonviolent ecology saturated with God’s shalom.
The hostile competition that we regularly see in the animal kingdom certainly has a parallel in human relationships. Achieving success is often understood as a kind of survival of the fittest: the ones with more power, more beauty or more followers will find themselves at the top of the proverbial food chain. In this mindset, our neighbors, coworkers or classmates become our competitors that we must best, if we are to find success.
When Isaiah prophesied to God’s people, they were certainly not feeling as if they were on top of the food chain. They had been preyed upon by their neighbors; their cities and families had been destroyed by their enemies and they had been sent into exile. The nation longed for the day when a Messiah with power, strength and influence would come to their rescue; a new king from “the stump of Jesse” (Isaiah 11:1) who would put them back on top.
In Isaiah’s prophecy, however, the competition is not won but entirely overthrown. The parameters of a competition-based ecology have no bearing in the peaceable kingdom; the victory of the Messiah is not the survival of the fittest, but the establishment of a previously unimaginable peace. In the vision, the lamb does not best the wolf, but the erstwhile opponents dwell together in respite and harmony. All find joy, feasting together in celebration of the Messiah’s victory.
What kind of Messiah will bring about this kind of kingdom? A king from Jesse’s lineage, yes. But a king who looks not like a wolf but like a lamb. Isaiah gives us a glimpse of the ethos of his rule when he claims, “a little child will lead them” (Isaiah 11:6). This king will lead in the power of weakness and self-emptying love.
This Advent, I wonder what kind of rescue you are waiting for. Are you hoping for a hero who will champion your cause and take you to the top? A victor that will finally put your enemies in their place?
As we welcome the arrival of Christmas, I pray you will welcome anew the lowly child in Bethlehem as your Messiah; the all-powerful, most-beautiful Savior who entered the charnel house of our world and, through his self-emptying love, overthrew the ecology of death.
Christina Ananias
Assistant Professor of Theology
Daily Readings
