Isaiah 2:1-5
Please listen with me to these words from the second chapter of the Prophet Isaiah, beginning at the first verse:
The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.
So far our text.
Today’s news reports are filled with troubling accounts of violence and conflict in this world. In Europe, the war between Russia and Ukraine drags on, with horrible loss of life. Suffering and death persist in the middle east, in the destructive war between Israel and Hamas.
And today’s news reports do not focus only on unsettling events that are occurring overseas. The cities of our land are chronically afflicted with crime and lawlessness.
Rooted in political and ideological differences: tension, hard feelings, anger, and sometimes even violence, characterize many personal relationships in our country, as well. Why is the world like this? Why are we like this?
People in general wish for peace and harmony with others. But people in general never seem to achieve this wish, and they seem easily to succumb to temptations to act in ways that are contrary to this wish. Why is this?
According to God’s Word, the reason for such violence, conflict, tension, and hard feelings – and for all the other evils that we experience in our damaged world, and in our fractured relationships – is, quite simply, the sinful corruption of the human heart. As recorded in St. Matthew’s Gospel, Our Lord tells us:
“Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”
And as much as the higher part of our human reason would desire peace and harmony in this life, we cannot, by our own strength or efforts, shed our lower sinful nature, or cleanse ourselves of that corrupt nature.
Our inborn sinfulness is like the tin cans that boys used to tie to the tails of puppies. No matter how hard we try to run away from it, and leave it behind us, our sin sticks to us, and follows us wherever we go.
Organizations like the United Nations may from time to time be able to do some good, in minimizing some of the violence between nations. But ultimately this violence will remain.
Conflict, tension, and anger will not be completely erased from the human experience, for as long as the human race exists in this world.
“But what about God?”, we might ask. If there is a God in heaven, doesn’t he care about these problems? If God is all-powerful, can’t he do something about the violence and conflict in the world, and about all the suffering and anguish that are caused by this violence and conflict?
Some atheists have concluded that the existence of such human sinfulness in the world proves that God does not actually exist. That is foolish reasoning, of course.
What human sinfulness proves is that sinful humanity does exist. Human sinfulness does not prove that a holy God does not exist.
But even so, doesn’t God care about the violence and conflict that exist in our world, and in our lives? Can’t he do something about it?
Well, remember what Jesus tells us. Evil thoughts and murder – indeed, all human cruelty and all human conflict – proceed from the human heart.
The problem is inside of us. We are not just the victims of human wickedness. We are perpetrators – collectively and individually. We are all a part of the problem, because we are all infected by the sinful corruption from which these evils arise.
St. Paul soberly reminds us in his First Epistle to the Corinthians that “in Adam all die.” And he reminds us as well, in his Epistle to the Romans, that “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
Some may have the idea that God should use coercive methods, physically to prevent people from saying and doing bad things to each other. There is a certain appeal to that wish.
If I am about to be the victim of a crime, I suppose I would be happy if a supernatural power would descend from heaven, and physically restrain the hand of my assailant. But I would venture to say that God does indeed externally restrain evil much more often than we realize.
Who knows how many bad things would have happened to us, that did not happen; or how much violence would have been perpetrated against us, that was not perpetrated: due to the fact that God sent his angels to protect us from these hidden dangers, at various times in our life?
The reason why we don’t know about these supernatural interventions, is precisely because these interventions did occur! And nothing bad happened.
But God does not intervene every time. The history of human warfare, and our own personal history of conflict with other people, prove this.
I believe that one of the reasons why God does not step in and externally prevent every potential act of violence, is because it would not be a real solution to the problem, but would instead hide and mask the real problem.
When violent criminals are thrown into prison, there is the benefit to society of their violence now being contained. Incarceration prevents them from causing further harm to law-abiding citizens.
But when a criminal is put into prison, his heart stays the same as it always was. If his heart was filled with anger and violence when he was physically free, it will still be filled with anger and violence when he is physically restrained.
In regard to the anger and violence that afflict the human race as a whole, God is not satisfied simply to tie a straight jacket around this problem, or just to treat the external symptoms of this problem. His agenda is to get into the human heart, and to change the human heart.
And the tools and methods that God uses to solve the problem of human conflict, at its root, do indeed have the ability actually to work in the human heart, for the accomplishing of this goal.
In today’s text, the Prophet Isaiah looks forward to the age of the Messiah – that is, the age in which we live. With the use of some beautiful imagery, he describes what God will do – what God is doing – to heal our human brokenness, and to correct our human destructiveness.
“For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”
When God’s law goes forth out of Zion, to all nations and to all people, one of the first things it does is to reveal to us the underlying stimulus of our conflict and antagonism with each other: namely, our conflict and antagonism with God. St. Paul writes in his Epistle to the Romans that
“The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.”
So, while outward violence is in a sense a consequence and symptom of man’s inner anger and animosity toward his fellow man, that inner anger toward other men is itself – in a deeper sense – a consequence and symptom of a deeper spiritual pathology: namely, anger toward God.
The sinful human heart is subconsciously angry at God, and hostile toward God, because God is both a threat and a rival to the sinful human heart.
He is a threat, because he judges and punishes sin, and therefore judges and punishes the sinner. And he is a rival, because sinful man – who is turned in on himself – worships himself as an idol.
In fallen humanity’s sinful pride and self-centeredness, fallen humanity cannot stand to hear the First Commandment, or to be told that we must fear, love, and trust in a different god – other than ourselves, and our own greed and ambitions – above all things.
But when the Word of the Lord goes forth from Jerusalem – to all nations and to all people – what that Word also does, is reveal to the human heart that the Son of God died in Jerusalem. Jesus came to Jerusalem, and he died in Jerusalem, to put an end to our anger and idolatry, our conflict and violence.
In his suffering and death in our place, Jesus diverted God’s well-deserved wrath away from us, and onto himself. And he crushed down and pushed back our impulse toward self-worship, by restoring us to fellowship with the true God.
The Word of the gospel – the message of the cross – does not just suppress our outward sinful behavior, and physically restrain us against our will. The Word of the gospel penetrates to our heart, and transforms our will.
The glad tidings of Christ’s salvation recreate us in the image of Christ, and unite us to the resurrection of Christ, who now lives his life in us.
The gospel brings pardon and forgiveness, for our old life of inner and outer conflict. And in the new birth of the Spirit, the gospel brings a new nature to us, and a new life of inner and outer peace. In his First Epistle, St. Peter comforts us with these words:
“You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you.”
There are way too many people in this world who harden themselves to the Word of God. They do not receive the law of the Lord.
And so they are not set free from their inner slavery to anger and hatred. They still perpetrate outward acts of violence and conflict. The are not liberated from the blindness of their idolatry of the self.
In their continuing violence, they testify to their deep need for God’s grace: a need that they sadly refuse to see and acknowledge. But also in their continuing violence, they vividly remind us of what we have been rescued from, by God’s grace.
In an indirect way, the violence and anger of the unbelieving world prompt us to remember, and to be thankful for, the way in which God has diverted us from this pathway of destruction: as he calls us instead to walk in the newness of life that has been given to us in our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection.
We do still struggle against the lingering impulses of the old nature – which continues to lurk inside of us; and which carries out a life-long insurgency against the new nature that God’s Spirit has birthed within us. The old nature, in its desperation, tries to overturn within us the peace of God that passes all understanding, which is ours in Christ, by faith.
But God, and the peace of God, fight back. Whenever you show love and compassion for your neighbor for the sake of Christ, without waiting for your neighbor to show love and compassion for you first, this is a sign that God has won a victory in you.
Whenever you find yourself forgiving an offense that has been committed against you, rather than bearing a grudge; or whenever you find yourself apologizing for an offense that you have caused, rather than justifying yourself, this is a sign that the Lord’s peace is with you.
By the power of his Word in the minds and hearts of men, God in Christ “shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples.” In the midst of human conflict, God shows his people a better way than the way of the world, the flesh, and the devil.
Jesus calls you, and impels you, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love your neighbor as yourself. In the words of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, we “walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.” And as St. John writes in his First Epistle, “We love because he first loved us.”
This love, which suppresses and supplants the envy, suspicion, and jealousy of your sinful nature, flows out from God himself, as he abides within you.
By the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ, in you God has broken through and halted the destructive pattern of anger and violence that infects sinful humanity as a whole. And for each of us – one person at a time – he has indeed shown us a better way: and in Christ has given us a better way.
In our personal relationships with others, we shall, as it were, beat our swords into plowshares, and our spears into pruning hooks. We shall not lift up our sword, and shall not learn war any more. We will instead remember the encouragement of the apostle Paul, given in his Epistle to the Ephesians:
“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”
In our reconciliation with God, we are reconciled to each other. In Christ, the Prince of Peace, we are now a part of a kingdom of peace.
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, and that we may walk in his paths.” Amen.