THE PEACEABLE KINGDOM

Centuries before Edward Hicks painted his famous depiction of the peaceable kingdom that now hangs in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the prophet Isaiah describe such: a place where wolf and lamb, deadly enemies, frolic together. Joining them are cow and bear and calf and lion and in the midst sits a little child who sticks his hand into a snake pit and does not get bit.

It’s an ideal picture of reality both in word and on canvas. Most of us would also say that it is unrealistic. It won’t happen. It can’t happen. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Lambs and wolves will always be mortal enemies. So will calves and lions, cows and bears, even snakes and people. What is even more unrealistic and unbelievable is that this little child who puts his hand into a snake pit will grow up to be our leader, says Isaiah.

Paul, in his writings, paints the same word picture. He tells us that in the future we will all live in harmony one with another, servants one to another. As with Isaiah Paul insists that this picture is one that will come into being, believe it or not.

So where did it all go wrong? This peaceable kingdom has never been, has never come close to becoming a reality and, if we look around our world today, seems even further away from becoming so than even in Isaiah’s or Paul’s times. Is it all a pipedream, pie in the sky, simply words of hope that are just that: words with no chance of ever becoming a reality in this life in this world?

The realist would answer, “Of course. Human beings are too selfish to do what has to be done, make the sacrifices necessary to bring about a world where we live in peace and harmony one with another.” Even we believers have a difficult time accepting the possibility of the kingdom ever coming to reality here on earth.

Perhaps the reason for this feeling for both believers and realists is that we all spend so much time wondering why things are the way there are and not spending enough time and energy doing what needs to be done to make the peaceable kingdom a reality. Jesus, the child in Isaiah’s prophecy, came among us to show us how to bring about this kingdom in the here and now. He did not come to bring it about himself.

Nor could he. Jesus showed us the way. It is up to us to follow that way, to show others the way by the way we live our lives, and hope they will show others the way by what they have learned from us. But, then, sadly, they have and so have we. We have all learned the wrong way, gone down the wrong paths and have ended up where we are right now: in anything but a peaceable world.

We know the right way, Jesus’ way. The peaceable kingdom can only become a reality if each of us lives the way Jesus taught us. It begins with you and me.