The Peaceable Kingdom
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
November 14, 2004
Isaiah 65:17-25; Luke 21:5-19
Isaiah 65 17 ¶ For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. 18 But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating; for I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy, and its people as a delight. 19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. 20 No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. 21 They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 22 They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. 23 They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be offspring blessed by the LORD — and their descendants as well. 24 Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. 25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent — its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
Luke 21 5 ¶ When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, 6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”
7 ¶ They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” 8 And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.
9 ¶ “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
12 ¶ “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.
I. INTRODUCTION
When I was younger, the prophecies of Nostradamus were really popular. Over the years, many had come to believe that Nostradamus’ quatrains had accurately predicted events of the past and held keys to understanding the future. There had long been a belief that he had predicted the death of King Henry the second and for confirmation that he was still accurate about the 20th century, they pointed to examples like this:
C2, Q24 Beasts ferocious with hunger will cross the rivers, The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister. Into a cage of iron will the great one be drawn, When the child of Germany observes nothing.
This is clearly about World War II, right? I mean, Hister is just an anagram of Hitler.
I remember buying a book of Nostradamus’ prophecies. The book had it all worked out how there would be a third world war, with bacteriological agents, a mideast tyrant and an alliance between the Soviet Union and the United States against the middle east and their ally China. It was a pretty convincing read. There was just one problem: this war was supposed to have started in 1986.
That didn’t really happen. I know that there are a lot of people who still believe that Nostradamus has special insight. They would argue that he had been misinterpreted. Given the cryptic nature of the quatrains, it remains to be shown how anyone can interpret them with any certainty. They seem to mean whatever you want them to. In any event, if Nostradamus didn’t make the error, the author of that book sure did.
But in my mind, Nostradamus is right up there with other famous prognosticators of the future who missed the mark, such as:
- The head of the US Patent office in 1899 who suggested that the office be closed because ‘everything that could be invented had been invented.’
- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, predicted in 1943: “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”
- There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olson, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation
- Or Ray Bloch, musical director, “The Ed Sullivan Show who said of the Beatles “The only thing different is the hair, as far as I can see. I give them a year.”
- “Who wants to hear actors talk?” H.M. Warner, cofounder of Warner Brothers, 1927
- “We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.” Decca Recording Co., rejecting the Beatles, 1962
- “The wireless music box [radio] has no imaginable commercial value.” Said to David Sarnoff, founder of NBC
- “This ‘telephone’… is inherently of no value to us.” Western Union memo, 1876 (http://www.phrenicea.com/oops.htm)
It seems we can forever entertain ourselves by looking at the predictions of the past and comparing them to what actually happened.
II. ISAIAH
Is Isaiah one of those?
It’s an uncomfortable question to ask, but it’s hard to read Isaiah’s words and think that they have come to pass in even the smallest way:
For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind… No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime; for one who dies at a hundred years will be considered a youth, and one who falls short of a hundred will be considered accursed. … The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent — its food shall be dust! They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
Has that come true? Even remotely? We might say that this is a statement about the perfect future and remains an ideal for us, in which case, it might still come to pass. This is a poetic ideal for us—a hopeful vision.
Just one problem with that. The text says, “I am about to create…” not “Some day I’ll get around to creating a new heavens and a new earth…” I am about to. And I looked it up—the Hebrew there actually says “I am creating new heavens and a new earth.”
Chapters 56-66 of the Book of Isaiah were written by an unknown prophet whom scholars refer to as Third Isaiah, sometime in the 6th Century BC, after the Jews had returned to the Land from Exile in Babylon. 2,500 years ago. If God is creating this new reality, he’s had quite a long time to do it, and so far, we haven’t seen much, have we?
III. VETERANS DAY
This past Thursday was Veteran’s Day. It is a day upon which we remember those who have served and given their lives in defense of the country. As part of that service, we read all 1100+ names of all the US servicemen and women who had died in the war in Iraq. We also read names of other foreign servicemen and women and the names of Iraqi civilians. It is a stark reminder of the reality of war in our midst.
Veteran’s Day itself is a reminder. The day started out as “Armistice Day” commemorating the end of the First World War (called then: the Great War) on November 11, 1918 at 11:11 a.m. That war had been referred to as “The War to End All Wars”. Well, it didn’t. And once the Second World War came along there was little point in celebrating Armistice day. In America, the holiday became “Veteran’s Day”.
And if that wasn’t enough of a reminder, there are at present 19 major armed conflicts going on around the world. There are 19 wars happening right now. (http://www.sipri.org/contents/conflict/MAC_patterns.html). 19. That’s actually a good number. It’s down from 33 in 1991. It was in the mid-twenties all the way through the mid to late 90’s. Isaiah seems a little off the mark:
19 I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. … They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in Jerusalem? They shall not hurt or destroy anything on all my holy mountain? Isaiah must not be reading the papers because there’s a lot of weeping being heard in Jerusalem these days. The Temple mount, where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located is far from being a site where nothing is hurt or destroyed. The recent Palestinian intifada began over a controversy involving the Temple Mount. No, I am not sure I have a lot of confidence in Isaiah’s vision at the moment.
IV. THE APOCALYPTIC VISION
In fact, of the two scripture lessons that we read, the Luke passage seems to be a little more on the mark.
Luke 21 5 ¶ When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said, 6 “As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.” … “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.
That’s a little more realistic. Jesus is right about the Temple being destroyed. It was destroyed 40 years later by the Romans. And not one stone was left upon another. The only thing that is left of the Temple today is the platform on which it sat, the platform whose Western Wall is the Wailing Wall, the holiest site in modern Judaism.
And, to be sure, nation has risen against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There have been great earthquakes, famines, plagues. If we’re looking at these predictions, so far it’s Jesus 1, Isaiah 0.
A. Prophecy
But, you know, it’s not really about prediction. Because both of these passages are not predictions, they’re prophecies. We often confuse those terms. Because the prophets often talk about the future, we assume they’re the same thing. They’re not. Prophecy is the word of God for the people now. It is meant to address the people who hear it now. If Isaiah had written those words that would only describe a reality more than 2,500 years in the future, that would not be prophecy. That would be prediction, or worse yet—divination.
The Law forbade the prediction of the future for its own sake. That was fortune-telling or divination. Prophecy often spoke of the future, but more often than not, the prophet was warning the people about the future that they could avoid by reforming and repenting.
Nostradamus wasn’t a prophet. And his predictions aren’t prophecies. Because they have nothing to do with the people who read them in his day.
But Jesus and Isaiah are speaking to the people of their day, as well as to us. Their message does have relevance to the hearer. But if it’s not about predicting events—what is it?
B. Apocalyptic
Jesus was, among other things, a prophet. And a particular kind of prophet at that. He was a prophet of “Jewish Restoration Eschatology”—that’s a big fancy way for saying that Jesus was a prophet who believed that God was about to inaugurate God’s kingdom on earth. The destruction of the Temple was an apocalyptic image, a sign that prepares for the creation of the perfect dwelling place of God on earth. The language Jesus uses is all about cataclysm, all about God decisively acting in history. It is not really about Roman battle tactics.
It is about proclaiming the inbreaking reality of God’s reign. About proclaiming that the vision of the Peaceable Kingdom is at hand.
V. AN OPPORTUNITY TO TESTIFY
But still, how do we reconcile that? It’s been 2,000 years since Jesus and still no peaceable kingdom.
Jesus says, that when the believer is hauled in front of governors and kings, “This will give you an opportunity to testify.” An opportunity to testify. To witness. To witness to what?
We usually read the Bible as we would any other story. So that we imagine ourselves standing there with Jesus in Jerusalem that day and him saying we will testify, and we wonder ‘to what?’ But we can’t read these stories the way we do any other. We have to read these stories already knowing the ending. The Christian faith was already decades in existence before the first book of the New Testament was written. The readers and hearers of this word would already have known the ending to the story. The ending of the story was that Jesus Christ was crucified and on the third day raised from the Dead through the Resurrection. This was no small trick—this was confirmation of the hopes of Israel. Confirmation that death would not have the final say, that the brokenness of the world was impermanent. That God was in fact winning. That justice would be brought to those who had so long awaited. Jesus’ resurrection was the first—but not the last. That redemption awaited us all.
A. Testimony
That is our testimony: what God has already done for us. For each of us. For you . For me. God has given to each of us the promise of eternal life without cost. God has demonstrated through Jesus Christ that the realities of this world are not the ultimate reality.
As Christians, we don’t just remember the past, we remember the future. We remember the vision of Isaiah, the Peaceable Kingdom, and we try to live into that reality. We testify with every element of our being. We live lives of peace, lives of justice, lives of mercy for one another.
Jesus doesn’t promise us that it will go easy for us: no, rather, he suggests that being a Christian can in fact be very difficult for us. But that this is our opportunity to testify. Not just to talk, but to show what God has in store for the world by living that way now.
Isaiah wasn’t making rash predictions—he was showing us the reality that God intended and inviting the hearer to begin to live into that reality.
B. Peace with Justice
It is little wonder then, that there hasn’t been peace on earth. We keep trying to come up with our own way. The silliest of them is trying to bring peace through war. They should have seen the folly of “the war to end all wars” a long way off.
Peace is not simply the end of war. Peace in the Hebrew tradition is shalom, which means ‘wholeness’ ‘contentment’ ‘well-being.’ . Wholeness. Justice. Until justice, it won’t matter that the lion is willing to lie down with the lamb. Why should the lamb lie down until it has received justice? That’s where we come in.
God has promised the redemption of the world and demonstrated that it is breaking in through the Resurrection. The Peaceable Kingdom is breaking in. When we testify to that reality, we help it to break in in small but powerful ways.
God is creating new heavens and a new earth and we are part of that creation. And to that creation we testify.
