In 1948, a World War II veteran named Earl Shaffer was the first person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. This 2,160-mile hiking trail connects Springer Mountain, Georgia, with Mount Katahdin, Maine. It is billed as the longest hiking-only footpath in the world.
Shaffer was restless after the war and he was grieving the death of his best friend. He needed to find some peace, so he set out alone on this challenging adventure. It took him through forests and streams and over mountains. He reached Maine in about four months. His journey has inspired thousands of hikers since to try to hike the entire trail, too. Every year, about 1,500 people begin the journey; only 1 in 10 completes it.
Since 1948, Shaffer has hiked the entire trail two more times. He began his third hike of the trail at the age of seventy-nine. Why would a 79-year-old man want to hike alone through 2,000 miles of rugged forests and mountains? He says he finds inspiration in the view at the end of the journey, the view from the top of Mount Katahdin.
“Katahdin is the most beautiful,” Shaffer says. “From the top you can see everything. You can look at it from so many different ways, and it looks different every time . . . People ask me what it is to make me go off and do something like this. It’s the beauty,” [he replies]. (1)
Our Bible passage for today is from Isaiah 2, and it’s a vision of a beautiful mountain. The prophet Isaiah is called by God to pronounce God’s coming judgment on the people of Jerusalem and Judah. But Isaiah is also given a beautiful view from the top of God’s holy mountain, a vision of hope, of God’s plan to restore God’s chosen people someday, to bring peace and justice to the nations through God’s anointed one, the Messiah.
“In the last days,” he writes. What exactly is Isaiah seeing in these last days? Isaiah sees a vision of the day when God’s Messiah rules the nations of the world with peace and justice, when people from every nation come together to eagerly worship God, learn about God and live according to God’s laws. He sees a vision of people who are so motivated to be in God’s presence that they look like an upward flowing stream of humanity, climbing up the mountain to reach God.
Imagine for a moment a stream of water flowing up a mountain. Impossible, you say. The laws of gravity make it nearly impossible for water to flow uphill. There are just a few instances where this is somewhat possible. Waves of the ocean can move uphill, either because they are pushed by strong winds or drawn by the moon’s gravitational pull. A few earthquakes have caused rivers to temporarily reverse course. Robin Bell, a geophysics professor from Columbia University, says that massive ice sheets in the Antarctic create downward pressure on the streams underneath, causing some of those streams to flow uphill from the pressure. (2)
But it takes a powerful force of nature, like heavy ice plates or an earthquake to defy the pull of gravity and move water uphill. In the same way, it takes the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds to inspire us to turn from our selfish, sinful ways and seek God’s ways. This is the vision of the future that Isaiah announces.
In 1941, Hitler’s armies were invading the city of Leningrad. The staff of the famous Hermitage Museum worked around the clock to load priceless paintings and sculptures onto three trains and move them to a safe hiding place.
The Nazi army blockaded the city of Leningrad, with the hopes of starving the population and destroying the city’s industrial and military strength. The Siege of Leningrad lasted almost 900 days. More than 1 million civilians died before the Siege finally ended.
The director of the Hermitage Museum decided to keep the beautiful building open, even though most of its artwork had been sent away. He felt that the beauty of the building would give hope and respite to the suffering citizens of Leningrad.
But bombing around the city of Leningrad soon damaged the Hermitage Museum, and snow and water got through the broken windows. The museum brought in Russian soldiers to help shovel out the snow and broken glass and mop up the water.
To thank the soldiers for their work, a museum guide named Pavel Dubchevski offered to give the soldiers a tour of the museum. What was there to see? It was a nearly empty shell of a building. But Dubchevski began walking through the rooms of the Hermitage and describing in beautiful, vivid detail each work of art that had hung on the walls. He painted word pictures of the marble statues that had graced each room. And as he described the art that had once hung there, the soldier’s eyes brightened. They began to see the museum through Dubchevski’s eyes. They began to see the beautiful works of art that had once been in those rooms. The beautiful works of art that would grace those rooms again once the war was over. And in the middle of war and starvation and suffering, Pavel Dubchevski gave those soldiers a vision of a future hope. (3)
This morning, let’s look at the future through Isaiah’s eyes. He has a vision, a beautiful, vivid word picture of what life will be like someday, in the last days, when God’s people finally turn back to God. This is a good Bible passage to kick off our Advent season, the season when we prepare ourselves for Jesus’ coming, for Emmanuel—God with us. Because Jesus is our second chance. Jesus is our view from the mountaintop. Jesus is our reminder from God that God has a plan to undo the damage of our sin and restore us to him. Jesus’ birth is the first step in the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy more than 700 years ago. So what does Isaiah see?
Let’s begin here. Jesus the Messiah is going to heal our separation from God.
In the first part of Isaiah’s vision, he sees an undoing of the Fall, when Adam and Eve’s sin built a wall of shame and death between them and God and drove them out of God’s presence. Our sin separates us from God and every good thing that God supplies—love, wisdom, joy and peace. Our sin separates us from each other. Our selfishness and pride keep us from experiencing intimacy with others.
In Isaiah’s vision, he sees an undoing of the Tower of Babel when the people tried to build a tower up to the heavens, and God confused their languages and scattered them to prevent them from trying to become their own gods. In the last days, Isaiah says, the nations will come together to climb the holy mountain of God. They will want God’s wisdom. They will seek God’s ways. And more than anything, they’ll want to be in God’s presence. No more separation from God. No more separation from each other. That’s the first part of Isaiah’s vision.
In the last book of The Lord of the Rings series, Sam Gamgee wakes up, thinking everything is lost. Instead he discovers all his friends around him. He sees his friend Gandalf and cries out, “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead! Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?”
“‘A great Shadow has departed,’ says Gandalf, and then he [begins to laugh] and the sound [is] like music, or like water in a parched land . . .” (4)
Everything sad is going to come untrue. What a great vision. That’s the hopeful vision Isaiah saw, the hopeful vision that will be fulfilled when Jesus the Messiah comes again someday
The second part of Isaiah’s vision is that Jesus the Messiah is going to heal our separation from each other. Verses 3 and 4 in this passage read, “The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. 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.”
In the Garden of Eden, God set forth the original design for humanity. God created Adam and Eve to live in a relationship of trust with God and with each other. When we rejected God’s ways, we also rejected the unity that was meant to strengthen and protect the human race. And what took the place of unity? Selfishness, greed, injustice, power struggles, war.
A social studies teacher had just finished teaching a unit on war and peace. “How many of you,” he asked, “would say you’re opposed to war?”
Of course, all hands went up. The teacher asked, “Who’ll give us a reason for being opposed to war?”
A boy in the back of the room raised his hand.
“I hate war,” the boy said, “because wars make history, and I hate history.”
Well, maybe that’s not the best reason for hating war—just because you hate history. The reason we should hate war is that it is not part of God’s original plan for His world. There have been times when war was essential to protect humans or preserve freedoms. But war is still a rebellion against God’s original plan for humanity. And the prophet Isaiah makes it clear that when humanity is restored to God, we will no longer desire war. We will turn our weapons into instruments of peace.
Robert Capa was a famous photojournalist who specialized in war photos. He risked his life on the front lines of battle, and his photos of the Spanish Civil war and World War II are legendary. Tragically he was killed by a landmine while on assignment in Vietnam in 1954. Robert Capa used to joke that someday his business card would read like this: Robert Capa, War Photographer—Unemployed. (5)
He was right. Someday, all who write about war and profit from war and suffer from war will be unemployed. When Jesus comes a second time, when he comes as the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, he will restore the original design of creation. Jesus will restore our peace with God and peace with each other. And all the selfish, sinful impulses that compel us to turn against one another will be transformed by God’s love.
An event of some significance took place in Wauconda, Illinois, a small town with a population of 6,500. For the past 45 years the town had placed two large illuminated crosses on the city water towers during the Christmas season. Then the town council received a threat. Someone was going to sue the city if the crosses were erected in the coming Christmas season, based on the separation of church and state. The town council grudgingly took them down.
But that’s when the citizens of Wauconda took matters into their own hands. They didn’t counter-sue. Nor did they organize angry protests. Here’s what they did. They decided to honor the missing crosses by placing lighted reminders of Christ on their own property. All over the community, the citizens of Wauconda put up lighted crosses and nativity stars and manger scenes and trees draped in lights. They put up so many lights that you could see Wauconda from the interstate freeway! Wauconda looked like an entirely different town. All night it was as bright as day because the people decided to turn on the lights of Christmas. (6)
What is the first thing God created in this world? Light. What is the last thing that will indicate the presence of God is among us? According to the book of Revelation it is light.
The Advent season is our chance to remember, to celebrate, to announce to the world that the Messiah has come and that we have been called to walk in the light of the Lord. And as we walk in God’s light, we will choose justice and peace because through Jesus we have been restored to God and restored to one another. For these next four weeks leading up to Christmas, I hope that you will focus on how you can heal any separation between you and God and between you and your brothers and sisters in this world of every race and creed, that you may share more of Jesus’ light and life with a world that needs so badly to know God’s hope and God’s peace.
1. A story related in The Associated Press. Copyright 1998. All Rights Reserved.
2. Can Water Naturally Flow Uphill? by Laura Geggel, March 26, 2017, https://www.livescience.com/58416-can-water-naturally-flow-uphill.htm.
3. “A Christmas Story” The Rev. Keenan Kelsey, Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA) http://www.noevalleyministry.org/sermons/2004/122404.html.
4. “Service of Remembrance and Peace” By Tim Keller https://www.redeemer.com/r/suffering_and_tragedy/service_of_remembrance_and_peace.
5. Allison Adato, “Camera At Work,” a profile of war photojournalist Robert Capa, Life March 1997, pp. 98 and 100.
6. Pastor Bill Koeber, Our Savior Lutheran Church, http://www.oslcwayne.org/about_us/sermons/05_january/050130.htm.