In this vision, predator-prey relationships are completely overturned; in fact, there are no predators. Carnivores have become vegetarians – a return to life in the Garden of Eden, in which plants and trees provided all the food that was needed, in which there was no killing to eat, no killing to settle scores. All that came outside the Garden, after the first man and woman were expelled.
They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.
No one will hurt. No one will be hurt.
Every time I'm on a highway, I pass the carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It is an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, less positive ways in our world; without predators they have to go further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit is wounded whenever I see a dead animal.
So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling – even more so today, on Veterans Day, as we mark the sacrifice of so many men and women and families in the human way of conflict we call natural.
What we do as people of faith is call into being what is not yet. In Romans 4:17, Paul refers to God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is – what we do when we pray is invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later… Transformation happens.
I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Where are your prayers leading you today?
Another Biblical prophecy speaks this vision again, with a different ending: The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Every time I'm on a highway, I pass the carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It is an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, less positive ways in our world; without predators they have to go further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit is wounded whenever I see a dead animal.
So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling – even more so today, on Veterans Day, as we mark the sacrifice of so many men and women and families in the human way of conflict we call natural.
What we do as people of faith is call into being what is not yet. In Romans 4:17, Paul refers to God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is – what we do when we pray is invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later… Transformation happens.
I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Where are your prayers leading you today?
Another Biblical prophecy speaks this vision again, with a different ending: The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
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