Lions and Lambs

For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I am creating [Isaiah 65:17-18a].

Some years ago, in a Bible study that I was leading at the time, we decided to take a look at the prophet, Isaiah. Realizing that if we followed an “A to Z” approach, we’d be “in the book” forever, I suggested that we take eight or ten weeks to examine some of Isaiah’s “big” text passages. One such passage was Isaiah 65:17-25, the OT reading appointed for this upcoming Sunday [the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost, RCL, Year C].

It’s the passage that inspired the famous painting, The Peaceable Kingdom, by the nineteenth century Quaker, Edward Hicks. You likely recall that the painting is the hauntingly beautiful scene in which, inter alia, lions and grazing animals peacefully lie near each other. Children play nearby. The painting echoes the prophet’s inspired words:

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox [Isaiah 65:25a].

“Vegetarian lions,” one class member chuckled to the rest of us, “Well, that will never happen.”

Another quipped, “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? Isaiah’s text speaks of an idyllic point in the far future, when God’s Kingdom is finally arranged the way it was originally intended.”

The first class member then retorted:

Ok, but look at the tense of the verbs in the first couple of verses. God says He’s “about to create” new heavens and a new earth. That implies it will happen at some future moment, but soon. Yet then, just a few words later, God tells us to rejoice in what He is “creating.” So, is this creation of God’s idyllic new world now or is it in the future?

Those of you who know me well can guess my response was “Yes.” II added, “As the passage indicates, I think God’s Kingdom is both now and not yet.”

Nevertheless, my response begged the question: If God is indeed creating something “new” in the present tense, why is there so little evidence of it? If God is so intent upon creating His promised Kingdom, then might we ask, “Shouldn’t we have seen it by now? After all, two and one-half millennia have passed since the prophet, Isaiah, wrote his words.”

Of course, the notion of time has always had its nuances. It is said that Einstein once said:

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

Indeed, particularly with God, everything never happens at once. We see this in the initial encounter between Moses and Yahweh at the burning bush. If Moses is to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt, he says that he’ll need to know Yahweh’s name. Yahweh responds not with a name, but with a personal characteristic—a characteristic that speaks to time. “I am who I am” [Genesis 3:13].

Yahweh embodies the present tense. And yet, Hebrew scholars note that the verse can just as accurately be translated with a reference to the future, “I will be what I will be.” Thus, time seems to be ambiguous from God’s standpoint. Our word “ambiguous” is derived from the Latin “ambiguo,” which means “both.” The Creator God is, therefore, both “now” and also, “not yet.”

Twenty-five hundred years have passed since Isaiah’s writing. Has the world changed all that much? Humanity is still burdened by deep conflict. The North Koreans are launching missiles over Japan. Russia has invaded Ukraine. We’ve spent billions supplying the latter with weapons to defend themselves. Pundits are offering their “over-under” predictions as to how many months will pass before China invades Taiwan. At the “micro” level, New Yorkers are afraid to take the subway. Numbers of folks have been assaulted and attacked. Some have even been pushed onto the tracks.

The Peaceable Kingdom—it doesn’t appear to be any closer than when Hicks crafted his masterpiece. Lions lying down with lambs—“yeah right”—some of us know married couples who can’t lie down near each other at night. Do you know families where siblings are estranged? Yeah, me too. There is also bitter conflict within the church. One of my Duke professors once quipped, “American Christianity has spawned more sects than insects.”

Indeed, the United Methodist Church isn’t so “united” any more. It’s working out a plan, as we speak, to divide into two competing denominations, with each side maintaining that it seeks truth and love. Other denominations are arguing over core questions that until recently weren’t up for debate—e.g., What is marriage? Or, do you think we should add an asterisk to Genesis 1:27? Well, we found out yesterday that at least we all agree on the important political issues. Isaiah’s words aside, If one wants evidence of a “non-Peaceable Kingdom,” one needn’t look too far to find it. Was Isaiah wrong?

Might it be that when it comes to time (and everything else for that matter) God follows God’s own rules, not ours? Might God have the audacity to think God’s own way, not ours? We saw some of this in the passage from the prophet, Habakkuk, that I discussed two weeks ago. There—and I think here as well—God is telling the prophets, and all who will listen, that there is a promising, beautiful vision—a Peaceable Kingdom, if you will—but we must wait for it to be fully accomplished [Habakkuk 2:3b]. In other words, is the Kingdom now, or is it in the future? The answer: “Yes.”

It’s “yes,” because it’s promised by the One who always keeps promises. It’s the promise made to Abraham and Sarah that they, an old and barren couple, would be the progenitors of a vast and numerous family of nations. Abraham and Sarah believed the promise in the present tense even when they fully understood that the promise would never be fulfilled within their lifetimes. In similar fashion, so did Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Aaron, Ruth, Naomi, and many others. God’s Peaceable Kingdom is coming. God is busy creating it now. It is both here and not yet. Might we be faithful enough to believe it and patient enough to wait for it?

I recognize that if you’re suffering in North Korea, if you witness the killing of thousands of innocent Christians in Nigeria, or if you lament the loss of one million innocent lives each year here in America, due to the choices made by others, waiting can be difficult. Waiting can be painful. There’s only one thing worse than that kind of waiting: it’s waiting without the hope of God’s Holy Promise.

God has given us His promise. He is creating new heavens and a new earth, but they are His new heavens; they are His new earth, not ours. God intends for us to enjoy them, but they are, nevertheless, His. God’s tendency, I think, is to perform His creative work in His way, not ours. Might we be startled to discover that one of His primary creative zones is within each of us?

Yahweh longs for a world in which the lions lie down next to the oxen, in which the conflict that seems all too natural between them is overcome by God’s creative and redemptive promise and action. Yahweh seeks that same sort of Peaceable Kingdom among us. He has already put into play all that is necessary for our human harmony. Will we accept His grace?

Are you a lion? Can you see that God seeks that you live in harmony with the lambs nearby? Can you see that it is God’s will that you not dominate your neighbor, but that you live with him/her in harmony, even if that neighbor pulled a different lever in the ballot box?

Are you a lamb? Do you view yourself as weak? Can you see that God has no interest in your defining yourself as a victim? God didn’t see Christ as a victim and God doesn’t see you as one either. To be sure, the lion is noble, but no less so is the lamb. It was not God’s choice to have just lions or lambs; He wanted and, therefore, created both.

Search within your own heart? Do you not feel that present day force that seeks to soften your heart, that seeks to cause you to reach out to those who are weaker, that coaxes you to move beyond the barriers that our society has created, that desires that you step over and even break down the fences that separate the lions from the lambs?

Don’t you sense that present day Holy Force that desires harmony and peace, that seeks to turn the lion within you into a Samaritan who will not condemn the lamb in the ditch, but rather will bind the wounds of the lamb so that, in turn, the lamb can recover to bind the wounds of others? Yahweh’s action to create His Peaceable Kingdom is occurring both in the current now and also in the not yet, because while Yahweh is working within you now, He isn’t finished with you yet.