For Hope

Walk In The Light Of The Lord

11.30.25 [Isaiah 2:1-5] River of Life (1st Sunday in Advent)

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. 

Is. 2:2 In the last days, the mountain of the Lord’s Temple will be exalted above the hills and all nations will stream to it. Is. 2:4 They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.  It’s a compelling vision of peace. It’s the kind of future that war-torn countries and combat-weary people can get behind. In part, it’s what we all hope for and dream about.  

In the late 1950s, these moving words inspired Evgeniy Vuchetich to sculpt an 11-foot-tall bronze figure. The figure is holding a hammer high in his right hand, so that he might pound the sword in his left hand into a curved plow blade . This sculpture emerges from the Rose Garden at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. It implores its viewers to work diligently to put mankind’s desire for war to rest so that the tools of warfare may be forever reshaped into tools for human flourishing. It’s a heroic sculpture. But it’s just a sculpture. 

About a dozen years earlier, commanders, diplomats, and politicians had the same goal in mind. After WWII, the Allied armies forced Japan to demilitarize. They imposed strict restrictions on the production of any kind of weapon, including the famous Japanese katana sword. For a decade, swordsmiths took reclaimed steel from abandoned buildings, war planes, and even bayonets and repurposed them for industrial and agricultural tools as Japan tried to recover from WWII. Tools of war were turned into tools of new trades. And because of the work of artists and politicians, we live in the world that Isaiah saw. 

Not quite, right? Nations may no longer clash swords anymore, but they still train for war and go to war against one another. Global military spending is around 2.7 trillion U.S. dollars. Isaiah’s peace has not come yet.  It’s still almost too wonderful to imagine. 

In our world, we see and hear of nations mocking the Lord and his ways. We live in a world of relentless darkness and strife. We live in a world where people call good evil and evil good. Where the deeds of darkness no longer hide in the shadowy and shameful places, but stand proudly in the spotlight. We live in a world where people do whatever they think is wise in their own eyes—and challenge anyone to prove them wrong. We live in a world where cunning cleverness creates chaos and destruction without a morsel of remorse. Our world does not yet look like Isaiah 2. 

There was a time when the nations streamed to the mountain of the Lord’s Temple. They came eagerly to learn the Lord’s ways. It was a time of peace and prosperity. A time of hope. 

In the middle of King Solomon’s reign, people said to one another Is. 2:3 Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord. We are told in 1 Kings 10:24-25 the whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart.

One such visitor was the Queen of Sheba. She came to Jerusalem with skepticism. But after she surveyed Solomon’s splendor—including the Temple and his palace—she admitted 1 Kg. 10:7 not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth, you have far exceeded the report I heard. As impressed as she was by Solomon’s kingdom, she left praising the Lord. 1 Kg. 10:9 Praise be the Lord your God who has delighted in you and placed you on the throne of Israel. Because of the Lord’s eternal love for Israel, he has made you king to maintain justice and righteousness. 

It was the light of the Lord that drew her up to the mountain of the Lord. It was the word of the Lord that moved her to praise the Lord’s eternal love. 

But despite the blessings of peace, prosperity, and the Lord’s presence, the descendants of Jacob were not content to walk in the light of the Lord.  

King Solomon himself 1 Kg. 11:6 did evil in the eyes of the Lord. 1 Kg. 11:4 His heart was not fully devoted to the Lord, his God. He did not walk in the light of the Lord. Solomon treated 1000 women as if they were his one and only wife. Paul tells us sexual immorality is 1 Cor. 6:19-20 a sin against our own bodies, which are the Temple of the Holy Spirit and a Eph. 5:11 fruitless deed of darkness. Unfortunately, Solomon doesn’t stand alone in his darkness. 

Sadly, the world is not drawn to the light the Church bears. Yes, even churches get more concerned with profit-and-loss sheets than the spiritually lost in their midst. But, even more regrettably, the world sees darkness in the individuals who bear Christ’s name. 

They see darkness in our hearts and lives. They see the darkness of jealousy and greed in how we talk about finances and use our time and money. They see the darkness of deception when the truths we hear on Sunday don’t shape Monday through Saturday, when we try to paint bad things as excusable or even acceptable. They see the darkness of injustice when we sidle up with those who are connected and influential and sidestep those who are in distress or most vulnerable. They see the darkness of our selfishness when we fight tooth and nail to get our way, but throw up our hands in defeat in our battle against our own sinful nature. They see the darkness of our laziness in how much more we care about being right than proclaiming how God makes sinners right. They see darkness when we nurse grudges and refuse to pridefully refuse to forgive the smallest of slights. The light of the Lord is the path his Word illuminates for our feet, but far too frequently we choose the dark alleys. 

Yet, God promised there would be a day Is. 2:2 when the mountain of the Lord’s Temple would be established as the highest mountain and exalted above all the hills. There would be a day when all nations would stream to that place to learn his ways and to have him settle their disputes. 

God promised this day would come when he said to Abraham, Gen. 22:18 All nations will be blessed through you. And he kept that promise by sending his Son into this world of darkness. Jesus is the true light that gives light to everyone. Jesus is the true light that the darkness of this world, the devil, and death could not overcome. Jesus is the true light that brings life to the world.

At first, the darkness of this world was confused by his light. He taught in ways they were not familiar with. He told them that Mt. 15:11 what they eat does not have the power to defile them, but what they say does. He exposed hypocritical habits and empty gestures. He warned them that Mt. 6:22-23 the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are fixed on what is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are fixed on what is wicked, your whole body will be full of darkness. He warned them that hatred, lust, greed, and worry were not reactions people have when people are under stress, but an unveiling that our natural hearts are already dark, Jer. 17:9 deceitful beyond our ability to cure. Then he assured them that Mt. 9:12-13 he came for the sick, not the healthy. He came to heal and cure, to call sinners to salvation. 

In calling sinners to salvation, Jesus walked in paths that they did not understand. He spent time with prostitutes and tax collectors—people who had been swallowed up by the darkness of lust and greed. He wanted them to know that Mt. 9:6 the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. He called sinners from all nations to the light of salvation—women from Samaria & Sidon, men with Roman status and power and those who were zealous to overthrow Rome’s tyranny. All nations streamed to hear him. 

And then the Lord lifted up his Temple. Not the one that Solomon built or even Herod’s Temple which dominated Jerusalem’s skyline in Jesus’ day. The Lord’s Temple, Jesus’ body, was lifted up on a cross. On Golgotha’s hill, Jesus was not a symbolic work of art like the statue in the U.N.’s Rose Garden. He was the substitutionary Lamb of God who took our sin upon himself. Jesus felt the hammer of God’s wrath. God settled the long-standing dispute he had with sinful people. Is. 53:6 The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Is. 53:5 He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for iniquities. As he died, physical darkness settled over the earth, but it did not overcome the Light of life eternally. God did not Ps. 16:10 abandon his Holy One to the grave. Jesus saw the light of life and justified many sinners. He was wounded so that we might be healed. He was punished for the transgressions of God’s people so that we might have peace.

And we do have peace, not because the Lord has forced us to disarm, but because he has disarmed us with the riches of his mercy. How can we do anything but love a God who has loved us enough to live and die for our sins? We have the peace that passes all understanding. We have a peace that guards our hearts and minds. We have the peace that propels our feet on his paths. We have the peace that washes over us as we are bathed in his light. 

Not only do we have peace, but we have been made a light. The same God who said let there be light in this world has 2 Cor. 4:6 made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of Christ. Christ has made you to be the light of this world. You reflect his light when you regularly read his Word, when you spend quiet time in prayer, and when you reflect the light of his salvation in your relationships. What does that look like? You love the light of truth, so you speak the truth in love, not just when it suits you. You love the light of truth, so you witness to the light of salvation—eagerly telling people about your Savior and theirs. You love the light of truth, so you forgive as you have been forgiven. You love the light of truth, so you walk in the light of the Lord. Amen.