Isaiah 9:5 In that day of peace, battle gear will no longer be issued. Never again will uniforms be bloodstained by war. All such equipment will be burned.
I can’t imagine a better scenario for Israel than the one Isaiah predicts. In history as today, peace for that land is a scarce reality. But Isaiah says that someday, the people will rejoice because there will be victory and deliverance from darkness… an eternal peace. No more battle. No more sweat and blood-stained days. No fear. No violence. No attacks. No fighting. No suicide bus attacks.
Some days in this life can be terribly intense. Some people right now are walking around in the thick and throws of a battle with darkness. This life, which for each of us walks through the valley of the shadow of death, is a fight. We go to a hockey game not to see a bunch of a hairy figure skaters… but to see a good fight. We say that we have to fight to get out of bed in the morning… as if we’re being restrained… as if the darkness is sitting on us and holding us back. We say we have to fight against getting a cold. We fight with our kids, with our parents, with our boss, with our friends, with our politicians, with our government, with other nations. We fight cancer, heart-disease, AIDS, growing old, homelessness, poverty, famine, drugs. We fight erosion, over-development, under-development. We fight for equal rights and our jobs. We fight for our lives. We even fight little things like plaque and gingivitis that causes tooth decay. Life is filled with fight.
Someday, the fight will be gone. "When you see this great light," Isaiah says, "it will give you incredible joy because you will have freedom and peace!" In fact, the peace will be so great that weapons of war will be gone. Non-existent. They’re going to be destroyed. Not just part of the world’s arsenal— all of it! Attack will no longer come because the fight will be taken out of everyone. Peace will reign. No more plaque.
How is this going to come about? How will this rejoicing and victory and deliverance happen? Who will be responsible? Who is able to do that? Who is it that defeats darkness with light?
The answer is shocking. It’s not a prime minister or the president or Oprah or a dictator or a king or an inventor or a philospher or a scientist, or even to my surprise, some pastor somewhere. Isaiah says, it’s a child… (next post)