Isaiah 2:2-4
Requirements for Peace

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 sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war any more.

New Revised Standard Version

Isaiah foretells that there will, one day, be peace. This was an unreasonable hope for the people of Israel, located geographically on the highways between Africa and Asia and Europe, the pathway used by countless agressor armies over the centuries. There was only one way that Israel could have peace, and that was that all the nations in the known world would come under the same ruler.

By the time of Jesus, the world had come under one ruler, but it wasn't under the rule of the Gracious God, but under the ruthless Romans. This was peace only as the absence of open warfare, but peace was absent in the resentment against the Roman rule, seen in frequent rebellions in Israel and elsewhere from desperate zealots trying to throw off the oppression from the invaders.

There must be more to the peace ushered in by the Messiah than simply the end of conflict and the political unification of all peoples. Isaiah captures three fundamental requirements for peace in this passage.

The first is in the imagery of the highest mountain. This may be unfamiliar to us, but Isaiah's listeners would have understood that mountains represented good, and the highest mountain was the closest to heaven that they could reach. Peace then comes from God, out of the abundance of God's goodness.

The second requirement is learning from God. Peace is not a natural state for humanity; it must be learned, and it can only be learned from God. We have several ways to learn: reading the Bible, meditating on God's Word, praying and conversing with God, and spending time with other Christians. We must let go of our nature and learn God's nature to find peace.

The third requirement is obedience to God. We must choose to accept God's dominion over our lives, and, as Isaiah writes, accept God's judgement and arbitration to lead us. The contrast is evident in the text that follows. Our way is the sword, but God's way is the plowshare. Our way strikes out at others, but God's way meets our needs.

One day, we will see world-wide peace, but we don't have to wait that long. The coming of the Messiah provides for us individually the promise of peace built on a restoration of our relationship with God. This Christmas, then, let us devote ourselves to living in peace by dedicating ourselves to obedience to God, learning from God, and seeking after God's goodness.