Huntington United Methodist Church

338 Walnut Tree Hill Road
Shelton, CT  06484
(203) 929-5545
huntingtonUMC@yahoo.com
Rev. Timothy B. Hare

The Wolf and the Lamb Together
Isaiah 65:17-25    Luke 21:5-19

“The Wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox.”  Isaiah’s version of the end seems a lot less likely than the one that Christ offers in Luke’s gospel.  Luke talks about nation against nation, kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines, plagues and other horrific events.  Isaiah talks about a time when they “neither hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”  Luke talks about division and persecution.  Isaiah talks about a time when the sound of weeping and the cries of distress are no longer heard. 

Looking around the world today I would say that Luke’s vision is far easier to spot.  Of course the big news this week has been the death of Yasir Arafat.  The front page of Saturday’s NY Times pictures a dense mob of Palestinians pushing in on one another, overwhelming crowd control, arms extended, simply to touch the coffin of their beloved leader.  One mourner told the Times, “I loved the president.  He is like a father to me, and to me he did not die.  He is in my heart, and I will never forget this day in all my life.”  In stark contrast an Israeli government official, commenting on Israel’s notable absence said, “I do not think we should send a representative to the funeral of somebody who killed thousands of our people.”[i] 

            NPR and other news organizations have aired biographical segments on Arafat’s political significance while talk radio hosts can hardly contain their indignation at the slightest hint of a suggestion that Arafat was in any way good, in any way a defendant of an oppressed people.   

Arafat’s death has been a huge reminder to me of how divided and troubled our world is.    It is, in fact, hard to imagine being any farther removed from Isaiah’s vision of the wolf and lamb sitting in fellowship eating a meal with one another.  For, of course, this huge symbol of the world’s division comes on the coattails of a national election that revealed the very startling extent to which our nation is split over fundamental ways of seeing and being in the world.  There are people who still cannot even speak to one another about the election.  At times I feel that I’m one of them.

            In talking about the end of time Luke’s gospel betrays a hint of optimism.  For, after all the horrors end the dust will settle.  Before it gets better it will get worse, but be assured, it will get better, says Jesus.  “By your endurance you will gain yours souls.”  And then perhaps , when the time is right, the wolf and the lamb shall feed together. 

But, the question before us, the one that keeps begging for an answer is: what will it take?  What will it take, what must we do, to reach that time when they “neither hurt nor destroy on all my holy mountain?.”  How will we get there, because in all honesty, it just doesn’t seem possible?

The answer that has come to my mind over and over again this week, despite my inclination to think that my side is also God’s side, is this: In each of us there is both wolf and lamb.  Each of us has a great capacity to be both hurtful and loving, both selfish and generous, both wrong and right, both faithless and faithful.  Wolf and lamb will come together and live in peace only when they both yield to something so amazing, something so beautiful, something so much greater than either, that both sides kneel in wonder and thanksgiving that they are even here at all. 

Isaiah talks about a new creation, about the end of time and the completion of God’s plan when there will be a new heaven and a new earth.  One of the great and unique truths of the Christian faith is that with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, something of God’s glorious new creation has broken into the world already.  Something of the end is made available to us in the now.  For Paul writes to the church in Corinth, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

            For the wolf and the lamb to feed together, for peace to really happen, it must begin with you and me.  The new creation is springing forth right here, right now, to everyone who yields to the Son of God, the Savior, not just of our souls, but of the entire world.

Let us pray: Christ enfold us, Christ surround us, Christ in our speaking, Christ in our thinking.  Christ in our sleeping, Christ in our waking, Christ in our watching, Christ in our hoping.  Christ in our lives, Christ in our lips, Christ in our souls, Christ in our world.