Advent, Week One
Isaiah 2:1-5
When I was 17 I had my first chance to study the Book of Isaiah as a whole. I was doing A Level Scripture and we were covering the Prophets. I remember being completely bowled over by the poetry of this passage.
‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the Temple of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways…’
It was fairly easy for my mind and heart to imagine the mountains, the invitation ‘Come’ and the desire to be taught God’s ways. But what stopped me in my tracks was the vision of the implements of war being re-formed as tools that till the land.
‘He will wield authority over the nations and adjudicate between many peoples; these will hammer their swords into ploughshares, their spears into sickles.’
Daily we have news of countries where there is unrest and people bear the aftermath of war and long term conflict. These images can haunt us. But they can also seem far away and absolutely out of our control. So, what is Isaiah’s invitation to us today? Perhaps the invitation is for us to identify our own ‘swords’ and ‘spears’. Then maybe we can imagine their transformation into tools that cultivate and till the soil of our hearts. Maybe we can imagine the peace we desire as starting in our own hearts, here and now.