Sermon for December 30th, 2018

Isaiah 11:1-11

1 A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; 4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

6 The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7 The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9 They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. 11 On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea.

Messiah: The Peaceful Kingdom

There's been a lot of speculation through the years about how exactly the world will come to an end. Some look to the terrifying images from Book of Revelation, others to serene passages like this one in Isaiah. Some look to science and the possibility of a devastating asteroid impact, or simply the passage of time and growing entropy in the universe.

All of those things are wrong, of course. The true end of the world will actually come to pass when someone flips a lever in the middle of a remote state highway located deep in the Ozark national forest in Arkansas.

This lever is clearly labeled "Do not touch until the end of the world" but there have been some close calls in recent times. Like the time when Nate the worm decided to crawl across the highway. Now, of course an earthworm doesn't have the physical strength to pull a lever, so there was never any real risk of Nate himself causing the end of the world...but when Nate was about a quarter of the way across the road (it took him about two hours to get that far) an 18-wheeler came barrelling down the state highway at about 75 miles per hour right at him. This is a two-lane highway, and Nate was right in the middle of one lane...while the lever to end the world was right in the middle of the next. By the time the truck driver saw them both--Nate the worm and the lever to end the world--it was too late to stop, and so it was clear that the driver had a difficult choice to make.

I regret to inform you that Nate the worm died that day, repeatedly smooshed flat into the state highway pavement by at least 9 of those 18 wheels, tragically cut short in his quest to see the other side of the road. But what can you do? After all, like the truck driver, we know that in the end, it was . . . better Nate than lever.