It's poetry from the prophet Isaiah-and maybe a bit too familiar-so listen again.
The wolf shall live with the lamb,
The leopard shall lie down with the kid,
The calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The picture that comes to mind as I hear these words is perhaps one that also comes to your mind--A painting by Edward Hicks--the early 19th century Quaker minister who found his calling in painting more than 100 versions of what has come to be known as The Peaceable Kingdom--paintings that capture the poetic images of the prophet Isaiah--of lion and lamb--oxen and wolves--and always almost shining forth from the painting the child--or children--a vision of a world--a peaceable kingdom where the very images of death and terror--wildness and savage--are set aside for the sake of or because of the child. Here is a poetic vision of the world--a world not radically disconnected from our world--the sky after all is still blue and not orange--the lion and the bear are still real animals not fantasy creatures but real animals now made new--a world made new--an Advent world. And a little child shall lead them.
If there is any time of the year when children take the lead it is probably now--the weeks leading up to Christmas children bring their parents to photography studios for those special holiday pictures; children lead their parents to the toy stores to identify their Christmas expectations; children lead their parents to musical and pageant presentations. Some children even lead their parents to church. Chris and I were shopping this week for the youngest member of our extended family--a new grandnephew--and what we found was a children's book that we had not paid attention to before. The book is David McKee's ELMER--the story of an of an elephant who was not elephant colored. Elmer was the color of patchwork--yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green, black and white. Elmer kept the other elephants happy--if an elephant was laughing the cause was normally Elmer. We even bought a small stuffed animal--an Elmer Elephant-colored not elephant color but a patchwork of colors. Now I have no doubt that this child's MIT and Johns Hopkins educated parents are probably going to have some problems with a patchwork colored elephant--but I am quite confident that their 18 month old son will not. To a child, mere life is amazing enough. A child makes no rigid distinction between the colors things are and the colors things might be--between tales of fairies and the tales of historians. The Christian author and thinker, G. K. Chesterton once observed (Orthodoxy, p. 54) that "a child of seven is exicited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened the door." The Duke University preacher and professor, William Willimon reminds us that "what we call "realistic" often only points to those levels of our lives which have become dead to a more expansive intellect. What we call "imagination" or art, or poetic ecstasy only points to those all too rare moments when we remember what we at three forgot."
In light of recent events I sense a growing fatalism among people--the belief that everything is as it has always been and forever more will be. The belief that we really don't have any control over our lives--we can only respond to the things that happen to us. Everything proceeds like clock work and we really can't change things all that much. A leaf is green because it could be nothing else. The poor are poor because they are poor and there is little that can really be done to change things. Everything is as it is due to routine, predictability and given enough time and sufficient government research grants -everything will be explained-demystified-emptied of significance. Yet we who were raised on the Judeo-Christian account of creation believe that a leaf is green because someone meant it to be so. Every leaf that is green and not beige is so because of choice. The world is something which has been meant--designed--brought forth. It is all here for our surprise--enjoyment and wonder--that someone meant it to be so--or it wouldn't be at all. Again, G.K. Chesterton suggests that the world is more weird than rational. "One elephant having a trunk was odd; but all elephants having trunks looked like a plot" (p. 59). We can read the repetition of nature as mere law--causality--cycle--and dull routine or we can read the world as excited repetition. Like that of the teacher who says the same thing over and over until someone gets it. Perhaps the grass is some sort of signal--the stars are yearning to be understood--the rising of the sun each day making some kind of point. Perhaps the mere repetition of the world is not a sign of its deadness and pointlessness but rather its vitality and meaning.
Children, who are very alive, often say--when they have experienced some great delight--"Dad, do it again!" And the grown-up does it again and again and again until you can't stand it anymore. Grown-ups do not understand the delight of monotony. Perhaps God says to the sun each morning "Do it again"--and to the moon each night "Do it again--and to the daisies each day, "Do it again!" and thank God that God has never tired of such "monotony." The experience of age and years--the repetitions and routines of life--does not mean that we have to lose the child-like qualities that can lead us again and again to discover the fullness of faith. I have presided at weekly worship services now for decades--celebrated the service of Holy Communion hundreds--thousands of times using the same words--given and shed for you--I have stood at too many gravesides--repeated the words--again and again One would expect that the repeated litany would have long since become so boring that any comfort or meaning was long lost--yet still I find--again and again--that in the familiar words are found comfort--strength-faith. The familiar provides a center from which I am prepared to meet the unexpected--that has been the story of salvation through all time--the constancy of God encountering creation in the rich variety of new forms--from burning bushes to water walking carpenters. The lion and the lamb--fantasy poetic images--no reality here--only in the prophet's dreams are the natural enemies at peace together--in our real world we hear again and again that we will never be safe around the demon terrorists who attack unannounced--only destruction and death will bring us peace--such has been the rallying cry of every war.
Yet 60 years after a terrible December 7th--the United States and Japan are united against another demon of terror--our enemies of old are allies today--Germany, Russia--we always know the lions--or at least we think we do. The Spirit moves--John the Baptist knew. Out of the dessert comes a breath of life--look again--what do you see. This past Friday evening Chris and I attended a concert at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. The garden walls leading to the concert hall were decorated with wreathes each made by a different floral designer. Most were great circles of green adorned with interesting and sometimes curious objects--objects both natural and manufactured--dried flowers--vegetables--ribbons and found objects made each wreath distinctive and interesting. And then--just as we were about to turn into the concert hall--we encountered a wreath made of bamboo--it was totally abstract --non-round--a chaotic assemblage of bamboo pick-up sticks that had been declared a wreath I think because it hung on the wall. Everyone stopped and looked at it. Many shook their heads and walked away muttering, "I wouldn't want that on my front door." But they stopped--they looked--and they had to think at least for a moment about the true meaning of a wreathe--something they had probably never done before. Advent is intended to make us stop and look--to consider the true meaning of advent--to hear familiar words repeated again and again. "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'" To hear and discover again the wonder of it all--the child-like moment that says, "Yes, do it again." Another advent--another glimpse of the Peaceable Kingdom--another Christmas. Thank God.
Amen.