The Bethany Bullet - Week of November 27, 2016

“It Shall Come to Pass…Peace”

Text: Isaiah 2:1-5

Please watch this YouTube clip from the Lord of the Rings.

Click HERE or copy/paste this into your browser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9skYkQfAwus.

This scene, from the Lord of the Rings, highlights something I believe many have occasionally pondered.

Is the ‘P’ in ‘RIP’ solely reserved for those who from their labors rest?  Or in other words, must we “pass” before peace comes to pass to us? 

In the second chapter of Isaiah (the reading of the first Sunday in Advent), the prophet envisions a future peace in which people turn tanks into tractors and missile silos become grain silos (so to speak) as “swords are beating into plowshares and people train for war no more.”  What’s more Isaiah sees a time when heaven and earth are completely reconciled and no one ever turns away from the Lord but rather, “all nations rush to His Mountain and His Temple.” 

Yes indeed, that day will be a day of peace!  It will be a day in which peace reigns supreme.  Yet, many, including myself on occasion (what about you?) are left to ponder… Is there a peace for us who are still in the fray? 

Those who come and kneel before the slain King, killed to save His “little ones”, know such a peace; a peace not like the world gives and one that is beyond normal comprehension.  This peace flows from the hope of heaven, the assurance of sin forgiven and the promise that ‘our brother, our captain, our King’, is also our travel companion.  We who kneel before the Crucified One, who is also the Risen Victor, know that peace is ours because in its truest sense peace is not a proclamation made on fine parchment, not a proposition nor process nor posture.  Peace is a PERSON, and even now before we arrive at “that day” we are His and He is ours. 

-Pastor Kevin Kritzer