Then a shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. His delight will be in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, he will not execute justice by what he hears with his ears, but he will judge the poor righteously and execute justice for the oppressed of the land. He will strike the land with a scepter from his mouth, and he will kill the wicked with a command from his lips. Righteousness will be a belt around his hips; faithfulness will be a belt around his waist. Isaiah 11:1-5 (CSB)

In Sunday School I’ve been teaching on Deuteronomy, specifically about the end of Moses’ life and Joshua leading the Israelites into the promised land after 40 years in the wilderness. At the fun (and rapidly approaching 30) age of 26, I can’t even fathom 40 years in the wilderness. 

When I think of Jesus’ birth, I can’t help but think of the FOUR HUNDRED years of silence between the books of Malachi and Matthew. At least in the wilderness, God was constantly there. He was providing, He was guiding. Those 400 years were silent. No prophets, no word from God. 

I feel alone sometimes, and I have the Holy Spirit inside of me, but these people had nothing! Nothing until our Savior was born in that manger, surrounded by animals and destined to save us from our own sinful nature.

Jesus came to make us complete before God; not stained in our sin. We can have PEACE in this truth, as well as others as we wait for Jesus’ Second Coming.

The First Coming

Before we can look to the Second Coming, we need to spend time thinking about the First. After 400 years of silence, our savior came to the earth out of God’s compassion for His people. Jesus came, not only to save the Israelites, but to save all that come to the Father through Him! Can I get a hallelujah!? Born in a manger, not even in the city that they call home, so that He can fulfill the prophecies that came before Him. 

As we speed walk through this chaotic season of seeing family, and a plethora of church functions, it’s important that we focus on what this time of year is really about. I don’t mean “let’s focus on the birth of Jesus,” which we totally should, but let’s read the gospels as more than a reminder of how Jesus was born, and more about what it means for us these two thousand years later.

Advent is a word that means waiting and preparing for Christ’s second coming. 

In our scripture today, and a couple of verses after, Isaiah talks about that second coming. He describes Jesus!

Verses 6-9 talk further about a peace and unity that comes within the land.

The wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf will be together, and a child will lead them. The cow and the bear will graze, their young ones will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like cattle. An infant will play beside the cobra’s pit, and a toddler will put his hand into a snake’s den. They will not harm or destroy each other on my entire holy mountain, for the land will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is filled with water. (Isaiah 11:6-9 CSB)

This peace and unity only comes because all in the land are full of the knowledge of the Lord. The world is full of so much chaos and disfunction, it’s almost impossible to imagine this kind of peace/unity, but we are promised this! We have this beautiful imagery of the most unlikely of God’s creation living together perfectly.

As someone who values harmony over being right, I live for (sometimes to my detriment) a lack of conflict. It gives me so much peace to know that our future is so perfectly unified! 

Peace as God gives it

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. (John 14:27 CSB)

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Do what you have learned and received and heard from me, and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:7,9 CSB)

Peace is a gift that isn’t from the world. If anything, the world teaches us chaos and anxiety, so we can praise God that He isn’t offering us that! God is peace (as well as so many other things) and because of this, we can experience a peace that is only offered to those in His family.

Going back to Isaiah 11, verse 4, we see that Jesus is promised to execute justice for the oppressed. Although the Jews at the time believed He would lead an army and rescue them from their literal oppressors, the Romans, He was actually coming to us to save us from our sins.

The prophecy was fulfilled when He died for our sins, rose again, and ensured that our salvation was complete. Jesus did it all for His elect. 

If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame. (Romans 10:9-11 CSB).

If you tuned into our Evangelism post, you probably recognize this verse as important in the Romans Road. We have peace in our salvation, because we were promised it and God doesn’t break His promises. Scripture is infallible, it doesn’t lie, and we can have peace in that.

We can experience peace together!

“I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world’s foundation. Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.” (John 17:20-26 CSB)

Jesus prays for unity for us, so that we may wait for Him together. He wants us to be like Him! To come to Him! And we do that by loving Him, and following His commands. 

We can never make it without the safety net of other believers holding us accountable and reminding us that we must keep our faith! The people in the 400 years of silence probably questioned if their faith had been for nothing. But, we get not only the Holy Spirit alive and moving within us, but the peace of having tangible people beside us being used by God too.

We can lean on each other as we wait for Jesus to come again, encouraging each other and helping with each other’s burdens. We can have peace knowing that our salvation isn’t only for you or me, but for all of us that put our faith in Him.

Our Savior came to the earth to save us from ourselves. We, as sinners, ruin our relationship with God with every disobedient action we take. But, God didn’t let that keep Him from wanting us.

In this season, as we get to focus on who Jesus is and why He came, let’s be agents of peace, who choose to spend time with God instead of the chaos that this season has become. Let’s focus on the PEACE we have been given by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let’s focus on the people in our lives that help us have PEACE as we wait faithfully for Jesus to come again.

So, as genuine disciples, I challenge you to lean into the peace we’re offered by Jesus’ first coming, as we wait for His second! He has given us so many resources, with peace being one of extreme comfort as we wait. I pray that you all can feel the peace that only God offers this season!