Isaiah 11:1-9
God's Peacemaker

And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah.
And his delight shall be in the fear of Jehovah; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his ears;
but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
And righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.
And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.

King James Version

These days, it takes a strong optimist to believe that our world has the means and will to create peace; that somehow, we, on our own, can fix what is wrong with the world. In that regard, the rest of us can call on centuries of history that have seen the failed attempts of myriads of well-meaning peace brokers, while war, strife, terrorism, and evil continue to plague people. On our own, we continue to create war, strife, pain, and destruction.

When God revealed the Peacemaker to Isaiah, God had to express how the coming Messiah would not come from this world, yet would be a part of this world. So Isaiah writes that the Messiah would be new growth coming out of a dead stump.

Like the words of the song tell us, "God will make a way when there seems to be no way." We can never let go of the knowledge that God is in the business of working miracles in this world, and in our lives. We also cannot let go of the knowledge that we can't solve our problems on our own, any more than we can expect dead wood to produce fruit.

So how does God's Peacemaker bring peace into our failing world and our desperate lives? It's beyond our ability to comprehend it! The Peacemaker comes in God's wisdom, knowledge, and power, not anything of this world. The Peacemaker comes most importantly in "the fear of Jehovah", a fundamental life commitment to respect, love, and obey God. Over and over again, Isaiah tells us the only way to solve the problems in this world is to follow God's Way.

So the Messiah comes in, fixes what's wrong, and turns it back over to us, right? How foolish that would be, but isn't that the way we usually do it? Too many times we fall into sin with the seemingly innocent response, "Thank you, God, I can handle it from here."

The Peacemaker comes not to fix, but to rule. The Peacemaker comes to bring God's Justice to the world and to conquer any power that opposes God's Justice. Our justice is based on our relative comparisons of "good" and "bad", but God's Justice is based on heaven's absolute Good. When we give ourselves to the Peacemaker, making ourselves subject to the Peacemaker's rule and God's Justice, God will care for us.

Look at the "other worldly" results! Isaiah tells us of impossible combinations, with confirmed enemies living in peace, natural predators changing their ways, and such perfect safety that not even an infant has anything to fear. All the earth shall be God's, just as surely as the waters cover the seas.

What can we make of this for how we live? The Peacemaker didn't come to change world politics -- Jesus came into the world to change our lives. The Peacemaker came to tell us we can't conquer the sin in our lives on our own, but God can. We can't live in righteousness from our own wisdom and strength, but the Messiah can make us part of God's Righteousness. We cannot find peace in this world, but we can find peace in Jesus, and we only will find peace when we give ourselves to Jesus every moment of every day.