Isaiah 11:1-9
December 7
David A. Davis
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“Sing of a Savior.” That is our theme for worship this Advent. Each Sunday service is crafted around the anthem being offered by the adult choir. This morning, the choir is singing a setting of Isaiah 11, the text I just offered for your hearing, entitled Dona Nobis Pacem. Grant us Peace. From Isaiah, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him.” Discerning wisdom. Strong counsel. Knowledge that drips with the fear of the Lord. Delight in the worship of God. “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.” The poor judged with righteousness. Fairness shall abide with the meek. Evil and wickedness upon the earth will be brought to ruin by his word and by his breath. Word and Spirit. Righteousness and faithfulness will surround him. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them.” Cows and bears will graze in the same place. The young animals will curl up together. Even the lion will eat straw. The nursing child, the weaned child, will play with the most dangerous of snakes. “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”
Reading Isaiah can be like listening to a symphony, a cantata, or a concerto. An attentive audience can hear how a composer works the melody and the harmonies throughout the piece using different instrumental sections. That recurring melody is becoming more and more familiar in the listener’s ear. That’s how it is with Isaiah’s song.
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined….
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Great will be his authority,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
-Isaiah 9
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 who lives but a few days
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime…
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
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….
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
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.
-Isaiah 65
Isaiah 9, 11, 65, and of course more. Isaiah’s song. Isaiah’s attentive audience can hear how the prophet works the melody and the harmonies throughout the book. That recurring melody is becoming more and more familiar in the listener’s ear. Of course, for Isaiah and the rest of the Hebrew prophets, it was never about an audience. Prophets don’t look for spectators. They don’t put out the call for religious onlookers. With his kingdom song, Isaiah is calling, creating, shaping, pruning, sending a kingdom people. The tradition labels Isaiah’s song “the peaceable kingdom”. The prophet’s peaceable kingdom song for God’s kingdom people.
Edward Hicks was the early 19th-century Quaker who created the famous paintings of “The Peaceable Kingdom”. I use the plural because Hicks actually painted more than 60 different versions of “The Peaceable Kingdom”. Hicks was born in Bucks County, PA. According to art historians, Hicks encountered pushback in his Quaker meeting because of his “worldly indulgence,” which was in conflict with Quaker values. He actually gave up painting and tried to be a farmer, but it didn’t go so well. According to Victoria Emily Jones in an article posted to the website Art and Theology, Hicks struggled with the relationship between his passion for painting and his passion for faith. He opened his painting shop and became a Quaker minister serving a meeting in Newtown.
I have shown you Hicks’s work in a sermon before. But, with Noel Werner selecting the Isaiah passage for this second Sunday of Advent, I thought coming back to Edward Hicks and his “peaceable kingdoms” was appropriate. What you are looking at is one of Hick’s earlier works now in the Yale University Art Gallery. The child Jesus is prominent there among the animals. To the lower left, Hick’s portrays a group of Quakers marching with a banner that quotes the angel’s pronouncement to the shepherds in Luke: “Peace on earth and goodwill to men.” Hicks pairs Isaiah’s vision with a worshipful march offering praise and adoration to the birth of the Christ Child, the Prince of Peace.
This 1834 painting of “The Peaceable Kingdom” resides in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The portrayal is more familiar if not more famous. The eye, of course, is drawn to the three children and the animals, all of whom have no focus to the lower left. Instead of pairing the prophet’s word picture with the angel proclamation of the coming Christ Child, in this painting, Hicks’s pairs Isaiah with a depiction of William Penn and colleagues in a peaceful, maybe even worshipful gathering with indigenous people along the banks of the Delaware River. It would have been members of the Lenape tribe who occupied the land there in Bucks County and the land where we gather this morning. You and I know that the aspirational portrayal of a peaceful gathering with indigenous people along the Delaware River drips with irony and unfulfilled hope. Later in his life, Hicks wrote about his own growing cynicism that the realities of life had destroyed his hope that he would ever see the peaceable kingdom in the here and now. One wonders whether multiple efforts at painting the peaceable kingdom were part of that journey of his. Hicks also wrote that his disappointment only led him to cling to Christ and Christ’s promise more and more.
Perhaps part of the legacy of the work of Edward Hick’s is an affirmation that humanity has never learned the things that make for peace. As Jesus said when he wept over Jerusalem, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace.” (Luke 19:42) Nonetheless, Hicks’s Quaker-influenced theological point should not be tossed away. It is a visual depiction of the prophet’s “already and not yet.” While waiting for that promised glorious kingdom to come, God’s kingdom people are called to point to, work for, shout out, and claim the reign of God now. That sounds like Advent to me. On the one hand, Isaiah’s song is sort of the soundtrack of a lifetime of Christmas Eves. Isaiah’s song played in the pageantry of a Christmas Eve full of carols and hymns and candlelight. But on the other hand, singing the song, singing of a Savior in Advent, offers a different takeaway. It is a vision of Christ’s promised kingdom, casting a light on and transforming humanity’s world so full of darkness. The peacefulness of God’s new creation yet to come spilling into the world, you and I see all around us. The eternal hope of Christ’s glorious kingdom gives perspective to the present reality. Singing Isaiah’s song in Advent comes with some umph, with urgency, even volume, while clinging to Christ and Christ’s promise more and more. Pretty much holding on for dear life and singing Isaiah’s song as a plea, a prayer. Begging Isaiah, your lips to God’s ears, Isaiah! To God’s ears!
Sometimes the song of Isaiah comes right from the scriptures page. Sometimes, in sublime beauty, like the setting of Dona Nobis Pacem, grant us peace. Other times, the vision is communicated with the subtlety of brush strokes and interpretation, art history, and the proclamation of God’s people. Isaiah’s message comes to us in many ways, but now and then, and especially right now, and right then, God’s kingdom people have to shout “your lips to God’s ears”.
The poor bathed in righteousness. The meek showered with fairness. Evil and wickedness plundered. Righteousness. Faithfulness. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them….They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” And yes, it’s about more than our shout because prophets aren’t interested in an audience who just sit and shout. Prophets aren’t interested in a litany of “thoughts and prayers”. Prophets aren’t interested in self-absorbed pietists who have concluded that Christ’s promise of salvation is just about their punched ticket to eternity. Prophets call people to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with their God. Prophets inspire people to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Prophets tell of the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God who stood up in the temple and unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19). Prophets are about pruning, shaping, sending, creating, empowering, inspiring, encouraging, calling, a kingdom people. God’s kingdom people who pray and plea and shout “your lips to God’s ears….Isaiah! ”
People of God, we are clinging to Christ and Christ’s promise more and more.
And we are going to shout, so God can use us.
We’re going to live, so God can use us.
We’re gonna work, so God can use us.
We’re going to pray, so God can use us.
We’re going to sing, so God can use us
To God’s ears
Dona Nobis Pacem.