Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse,and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.  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. . . .  Also righteousness will be the belt about His loins,and faithfulness the belt about His waist. And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Isaiah 11: 1-2, 5-9

PEACEFUL KINGDOM
The music of Ken Medema and the words of Isaiah 11 bring to mind peaceful scenes of prey and predators sitting together, enjoying life in the shade of a tree. In the peaceful kingdom of the Messiah, not only will these historically antagonistic animals enjoy life together, but all the injustice and violence symbolized by them in the world will also be removed.

At first glance, a look at Edward Hicks’ painting The Peaceable Kingdom encourages us with its visual image of this dream. (This is just one version of the painting; Hicks painted over a hundred different versions of it.) We see the animals described in the Isaiah text sitting together.  The picture of peace is expanded by a historical vignette Hicks provides for us in the corner. The crown had granted the Quaker William Penn much land in the New World, and instead of conquering the land from its inhabitants, he made treaties with them. Hicks’ implication was that this peaceable kingdom could be found in the here and now in such places as Pennsylvania, where the colonists did not abuse the Native Americans but treated them kindly.

However, closer study of the painting causes us some concern. First, the large eyes of the predators indicate that not all is right in the supposedly peaceful animal kingdom. It appears that they have almost been shocked into inaction rather than experiencing a life-changing diet. The peace we find here seems to be more of a cessation of hostilities (the way we usually think of peace in English) than of the full-orbed Hebrew peace (shalom). Second, the historical background of the vignette involving William Penn is troubling. Penn was relatively fair with the Native Americans, but succeeding generations did not show that same kind of regard, and by the time of William Hicks the peaceful kingdom was no longer peaceful.

What do we make of this? Hicks did not intend to be ironic with his painting (he blamed the Presbyterians and other non-Friends for the killing of the Native Americans), but these troubling aspects help us to read the biblical text more carefully. The coming of the Messiah to Bethlehem in the time of Caesar Augustus did not bring the peaceable kingdom to the world. Theologically speaking, the kingdom has been inaugurated, and the church is designed to show this peaceable kingdom in a dark world (indeed, Penn’s Pennsylvania is a glimmer of that peaceable kingdom). However, the full manifestation of the peaceable kingdom is still future. How have you been treated unfairly in your life? How have you seen others mistreated? All of this type of behavior will be done away with at the day of the return of the Messiah and the fulfillment of Isaiah 11. As we wait for Christmas to remember his first coming, it reminds us that we are waiting for his second coming, at which point the true peaceable kingdom will be experienced by all. Hasten the day!
Charlie Trimm, Assistant Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies

LORD, ’tis for Thee, and thy coming we wait. The sky, not the grave, is our goal. Oh, trump of the angel! Oh, voice of the Lord! ?Blessed hope, blessed rest of my soul!  And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight, the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.?The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend. Even so, it is well with my soul. Come, Lord Jesus!
Horatio Spafford