Posts Tagged ‘Isaiah 2:1-5’

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Isaiah 2:1-5

Happy New Year!  

Today is the first day of Advent, the beginning of the Church’s calendar year.  The lectionary gives us a great gift when it begins the year with this short passage from the book of Isaiah: Isaiah 2:1-5.  Here we read the account of a vision given to Israel’s greatest prophet.  Isaiah sees a mountain – “the mountain of the Lord’s house” – raised high above all other mountains.  And to this place, he tells us, “all the nations” shall stream.  They will say to one another, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.”

The mountain Isaiah refers to is, of course, Mount Zion, on which stood the Temple, the dwelling place of God on earth.   The revelation given to Isaiah in this vision is that this mountain – “the mountain of the Lord’s house” – will be a source of wisdom and right judgment for all people.  The Law of Moses, given initially to the people of Israel, will instruct all the nations in the ways of God and teach them to walk in God’s paths.  The result of this will be universal peace, the promise of peace with justice, which will allow humankind to “beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks,” so that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”