In 1945 the world was decimated by war. The nations of the world had exhausted all their resource in an effort to destroy each other. Soldiers and civilians alike were slaughtered on the battlefield in bomb shelters, and gas chambers. It was the deadliest conflict in human history. It has been estimated that 70-85 million people died in the second world war. Economies were in ruins, entire cites like Hiroshima and Nagasaki were leveled, and governments were dismantled.
As World War 2 came to an end, people longed for peace. So, in the spring of 1945, representatives of 50 countries gathered at a conference in California to discuss the idea of world peace. They wanted to prevent another world war like the one they had just lived through. To that end, delegates drafted and signs the UN Charter, which created a new international organization called the United Nations. It was hoped the United Nations would be “the one place on earth where all the world’s nations could gather, discuss common problems, and find shared solutions”[1] that would keep the peace.
Today the United Nations is headquartered in midtown Manhattan. There, on every Tuesday of the third week in September, 193 member states gather in the general assembly to negotiate world peace. As the delegates of the world’s nations approach the UN building, many of them pass, the Isaiah Wall. The Isaiah Wall has been located directly across the street from the UN building since 1948. However, I suspect many of the UN delegates scurry passed the Isaiah Wall heedlessly unaware of its existence. Which is too bad because engraved in the granite of the Isaiah Wall are the following words, “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 ANYMORE”. The monument simply credits these words to the prophet Isaiah but more specifically they are the words of Isaiah 2:4 (part of our Old Testament lesson for this morning).
I cannot help but think the peace keeping efforts of the UN delegates would be more fruitful if they spent less time in the general assembly and more time meditating on the words of Isaiah and not just Isaiah 2:4 but also the words that accompany them. If they did, I think they would discover that real peace is not found within the walls of the UN, but rather, real peace is found on the mountain of the Lord where Jesus our Prince of peace reigns.
Before Isaiah wrote the words that are inscribed in granite outside the UN he wrote, “2 In the last days the mountain of the LORD’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.” Isaiah directs the eyes of all who seek peace to the mountain of the Lord’s temple. To understand what we are looking at it is helpful to know that the sizeable mass of mountains and the heights to which they soared led many ancient people to associate mountains with the gods. The prophet Isaiah is not suggesting the mythical mount Olympus is a real place ruled by a pantheon of real gods, but he is borrowing the imagery of a mountain to talk about the place where our God reigns. The prophet Isaiah sees the future like a series of peaks in a mountain range. Isaiah says our God’s mountain is “chief among mountains” and is “raised above the hills”. Isaiah makes this claim based on what happens on the mountain of the Lord’s temple. There the promised Prince of peace appears.
Unfortunately for Isaiah the Prince of Peace does not appear as clearly to the prophet as He does to us. In 7:14 Isaiah describes the Prince of Peace as a child born of a virgin. In 9:7 Isaiah describes the Prince of Peace reigning on David’s throne and over an everlasting kingdom. In 53:5 Isaiah describes the Prince of Peace as pierced and punished. As the prophet Isaiah looks at the peak upon which the Prince of Peace appears he has the same difficulty that anyone looking at a mountain range from a distance has, the individual peaks of the mountain range blend together into one.
The prophet Isaiah sees the appearance of the Prince of Peace as one advent but for those of us standing in a valley in the middle of the mountain range the view is clearer. We look behind us 2,000 years and see the first advent of the Prince of Peace who came to be our substitute and sacrifice and we look before us into an unspecified future and see the second advent of the Prince of Peace who will come to be our savior and sovereign. In the pages of scripture, we see what Isaiah saw, we see the appearance of the Prince of peace as both a vulnerable child and an invincible king, we just see His appearances or advents as two separate events.
Thanks to the inspired books of the New Testament, we see the advents of the Prince of Peace a lot clearer than the prophet Isaiah saw them. However, the valley between the peak of the past and the peak of the future in which we now stand isn’t any more peaceful than the ground upon which the prophet Isaiah stood. The valley in which we now stand is filled with wars and rumors of wars just as the valley of the generation before us was and the valley of the generation after us will be. Like all other valleys in human history, our valley is full of betrayal, hatred, and deception. In our valley wickedness is ever increasing and the love of most has already grown cold.[2]
There is not a lot of peace around us in this valley in which we stand, but more concerning than the lack of peace around us is the lack of peace among us. To understand why there is a lack of peace between us we need to talk about the lack of peace that exists between us and our God. The number of times we have rebelled from His laws, committed treason with His commandments, and mutinied against His decrees is appalling. Because of our own sin we have disturbed the peace that should exist between us and our God. But it doesn’t stop there. The conflict we constantly create between us and our God, also has a way of disturbing the peace inside of us. Guilt over what we have done or failed to do is like an air raid siren that shrieks inside our souls. Try as we might to ignore our guilt, the shrieking sound it makes distracts us from our tasks, disturbs us in our thoughts, and disrupts us from our sleep. The shrieking sound of our sin disturbs our inner peace, but still, it does not stop there. The sound of our sin shrieking inside us makes us predictably irritable, which might not be that big of a problem if we lived in isolation on a deserted island far away from all other human life. However, this is not the case for us. We live in cities, neighborhoods, and homes full of people; people who because of their own sin are just as irritable as we are. It doesn’t take much; a cynical assumption, an insensitive comment, a thoughtless action and before you know it…(Kaboom!) even the peace that ought to exist between brother and sister, child and parent, husband and wife is disturbed. You see, sinful conflict exists among us, because sinful conflict exists inside us, because sinful conflicts exist between us and our God.
If we want to be at peace with each other, we must be at peace inside ourselves, and the only way we can do that is to be at peace with our God. And the only way we can be at peace with our God is through Jesus. Which is why the Holy Spirit through the words of the prophet Isaiah seeks to lift our eyes from the valley of our sin to the mountain of the Lord’s temple. From verse 3 the prophet calls to us, “3… Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” There, on the mountain of the Lord’s temple and here in the house of our God, we meet the Prince of Peace. We meet the one who allows us to stand sinless before our God. We meet the one who silences the siren of sin that shrieks inside us. We meet the one who teaches us to live in peace with one another. We meet Jesus. The prophet Isaiah invites us to come to the mountain of the Lord to meet Jesus because only in Him can we find peace.
Conflict exists because of sin. The sin that disturbs the peace between God and man cannot be debated away, terms of peace cannot be negotiated, and no amount of diplomacy can bring about peace as long as sin remains. That is why, though I applaud the efforts of the men and women of the United Nations, peace will never be found in halls of men. Since the founding of the United Nations in 1945 there have been no world wars fought. However, there have been nearly 500 wars fought among the people of our world. Despite the best peace keeping efforts of the men and women in the UN, on average every two months a war is started somewhere in the world. That is why I cannot help but think the peace keeping efforts of the UN delegates would be more fruitful if they spent less time in the general assembly and more time meditating on the words of Isaiah.
Peace can only be found on the mountain of the Lord where Jesus our Prince of peace reigns. Jesus is the reason people beat their swords into plowshare and their spears into pruning hooks. Jesus is the only one who can prevent nations from taking up swords against nations and cause them to stop training for war. Which is why this advent season we look behind us 2,000 years and celebrate the His first appearance as a babe born in Bethlehem while at the same time we look before us into the unspecified future when He will come again in glory. All the while praying, “come Lord Jesus our Prince of Peace”. Amen
[1] From the United Nations Webpage
[2] Matthew 24