The Direction of Hope

The Direction of Hope--December 21, 2018

"In days to come the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. 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 instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." [Isaiah 2:2-4]

Let me ask you a question.  Why on earth do you supposed the prophet shares this vision of a future day of peace before it happens?  Why, if this words have come from God, does God promise people that there will come a time when war will have ended, when weapons will be reforged into useful tools for the farm, and when all the nations will be welcomed into God's holy temple to learn God's ways?  I mean, let's assume for a moment that God is intentional in whispering such visions to the prophets, and that their oracles and writings were not just the random firing of synapses in their brains, so why give this glimpse at all, if it is a picture of a future day?

Well, maybe let's start with a thought experiment a little bit closer to home.  I have two kids--seven and five--and they know that Christmas is coming.  Truthfully, they know in large part because their mom and I keep telling them so.  They are surely picking up on the cues around them at school and at the stores, but we are the ones they ask daily about how many days it will be until Christmas, and we are the ones reminding them about what will happen when Christmas comes.  They are fully aware of a coming day when presents will be exchanged, they'll be off of school, and our whole family will be together around a crackling fire while the jazz piano of  A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack plays in the background (go ahead and try to tell me that isn't the best Christmas album of all time!).  My children know, because we, their parents, have described to them images and mental snapshots of what it will be like when Christmas Day comes.

Now, here's a little bit of a funny thing: the more we tell them about Christmas, and the more they are aware of how close it is coming, the more and more excited they get.  They get fired up with energy, they don't want to sleep, they want the Christmas lights on more and more, and they get basically consumed with Christmas excitement--which also means they are harder to corral for bedtime, harder to get wound down at the end of the day, and harder to get to do their homework or eat their vegetables, since they are so focused on hot chocolate, gingerbread cookies, and presents.

So why do we, the grown-ups in the house, tell our kids about the coming of Christmas?  Isn't it in our self-interest as parents to keep them from getting so worked up about it?  Aren't we setting ourselves up for additional nights with impatient kids who insist they "can't wait for Christmas" and extra fuss while we count down the days?  Why bother giving them the picture ahead of time of what will happen at Christmas?

Well, in a sense, it's because we actually want them to get excited about Christmas.  The day, the celebration, the story, the time, all of it--and yes, even the presents--we want them to enjoy that day.  But also, I am convinced, we do it because we think that knowing about what will happen at Christmas has the power to shape what they are doing now.  Not in a "be-good-or-else-Santa-won't-bring-you-any-presents" kind of way.  But it's more that we want our kids to begin to act now in light of what will happen come Tuesday morning. We are getting the house ready, we are thinking of each other and what kinds of gifts we are giving to others, we are helping support other people in our community to be able to provide presents for their kids, and we are getting excited for the arrival of family from far away.  In a sense, we are teaching our kids what to get excited about, to give their excitement and their hope a certain shape.  We are teaching them, for example, that it's worth getting excited about seeing family we haven't seen for a while.  It's worth getting excited about giving to someone else.  It's worth getting excited about everyone being around the table.  We tell our kids about what's coming at Christmas in order to give their hope a particular direction--to know what to be looking forward to, and to help them align their lives around that, not just when the 25th rolls around, but in the mean time.

So let's go back to Isaiah and his vision of peoples from all over creation streaming into the very heart of Israel, into the capital city of Jerusalem, and in fact, into the very "house of the God of Jacob," the Temple.  What sort of image is this meant to be?  Are Isaiah's hearers supposed to be... afraid?  Concerned?  Defensive?  Excited?  Hopeful? Confused?  Indifferent?  And this business about beating their weapons into farming tools--are the people supposed to react with disgust and outrage? "Why will someone be taking our weapons from us? Don't let them get our spears, boys!" Or does the prophet want his hearers to be on board with God's sword-to-plowshare policy?

Or to put it differently, what is the direction of the hope Isaiah wants to point his hearers in?  

I think it's supposed to be obvious: Isaiah sees this vision of the future, not as something to be afraid of, but something to get excited about.  More than that, it's something to re-align your life around now.  Isaiah tells the people ahead of time, "There's coming a day when all peoples will be drawn to learn God's ways here!" in order to get them excited about the idea of many nations coming to join them to practice justice and mercy.  Isaiah wants the people to get excited about not needing swords and spears anymore when all these foreign nations come streaming in to their capital.  

Think about it--you could imagine some other voice in Isaiah's time wanting to twist those words into a message of fear: "Look out, or else we'll all be overrun by foreigners streaming into our country, right into our very temple, and we won't have any swords or spears to stop them!"  You could imagine some false prophet taking the same images and trying to use them for the exact opposite purpose of Isaiah's intention.  You could imagine someone trying to redirect the people's hope to manipulate them into being afraid of all those nations coming and to fear not having their swords and spears when it happens.  But that's not what Isaiah is trying to do.  Like me getting my kids excited about Christmas, the prophet wants to get the people excited about God's promised future--the coming of people from far away, the surprise of good gifts, the presence of love.  Isaiah--and the God who prompts him to speak--has an agenda, a particular message, and a certain direction of the hope he is holding out.

This is how we live as the people of God: with a certain hope, a particular future that pulls at us, and glimpses from the dreams of prophets of God's Reign that welcomes all.  If our hope had a different direction, we would see the world differently.  If the prophets said, "Keep those other nations away from getting to our capital!" or "Look out--someone is going to try to convince you beat your sword into a plowshare!" we would become fearful of the idea of many peoples coming into God's very temple, and we would be opposed to this spears-into-pruning-hooks program.  But because of the particular direction of our hope, we are being taught to that these are good things: it is a good thing in Isaiah's mind for all the nations of the world to come streaming into the very heart of their nation, their capital, and their temple.  It is a good thing not to have to learn war anymore.    If we can dare to let that trajectory of hope shape our minds and our hearts now, we will live differently now.

Why does a prophet like Isaiah give a glimpse of this future day?  To teach us what to get excited about, rather than afraid of, now, and so that we will live in the present in light of a promised day when everyone from all corners of the world find a welcome to God's holiest ground, and when we are finally done with needing to carry around things to kill each other with.

Such a future is worth thinking about... talking about... and living for.  That is the direction of our hope.

Lord God, keep raising up voices to give us glimpses of your new creation, so that we will know what to hope for, and arrange our lives in light of it.