In Isaiah 11, the prophet, his heart expressing utmost yearnings from God, speaks of the wolf laying down with the lamb. Yes, 2700 years ago, in that region, there were plenty of wolves and lambs. I scoffed when Hamas was called “sub-human”; what they did was all too human. Israel, Palestine, the Levant, the ME, whatever you wish to call it, has been a rough area for a long time.
Isaiah, if you were to meet him, would resemble nothing more closely, in our modern world, than one of those scary clerics from the Afghan mountains. Dour, grim, and trained to worship by ritually slaughtering living animals and rendering them into pieces per a learned ancient ritual. That he could write and express himself in terms that would resonate for centuries was a bonus.
This man, when communing with God, seeking out God’s utmost will, expressing humanity’s utmost desire, wrote a prophecy of peace, of the predators and prey coexisting.
We have four advent candles- hope, peace, love and joy. We all need to hope for peace, so we can get to the other two.