Today’s lesson from the prophet Isaiah never ceases to touch my heart, to stir my imagination. What a picture of the kingdom of God it portrays! The image of what we have come to call the “peaceable kingdom” that Isaiah describes is so familiar to us, no doubt, through all the ways it has been depicted in so many Christmas cards over the years. We readily recognize the miracle involved in getting the animal kingdom, “red in tooth and claw,” to come together in God’s perfect love, but what about humanity? Can it [we, in other words] ever be part of such a beatific scene?

John the Baptist certainly had his doubts about the “brood of vipers” that surrounded him in his ministry. He seems to have envisioned the righteous being separated from the unrighteous as wheat from chaff. His image speaks to me, however, not of casting out the unworthy, but rather of the refiner’s fire, a metaphor so popular with the prophets in the Hebrew scriptures, cleansing, purifying, burning away the dross in each one, in you and me, sanctifying us for the kingdom of God, as we open ourselves to God’s transforming love.

When we look deep within our own hearts, it is easy to see vestiges of pride, arrogance, self-sufficiency, of anger, bitterness, resentment, of envy, jealousy, contempt, of covetousness, greed, hoarding, of gluttony, overindulgence, lack of self-discipline, of lust, personal gratification, cruelty, and of sloth, laziness, indifference, all those aspects of “the seven deadlies.” There is little peaceableness there—and if not there, where, how can we find it? According to the Baptizer, repentance is a good place to start, to turn our face to God, offering ourselves to God’s mercy and grace, trusting in God’s refining fire to make us whole and holy, one day at a time.

If we look outside ourselves, we see how little harmony exists in the world today: in our families, our churches, our schools, in our communities, our states, our political leaders throughout our nation, and in all the nations around the world where “wars and rumors of war” (Mt.24;3) are rampant. Yet the day is coming Isaiah tells us, when “the earth will be full of the knowledge [love] of God as the water covers the sea.” I picture the Sherwin-Williams logo with paint covering the world, dripping down in abundance and see God’s anointing grace enfolding, infusing us, enabling us, all of us, to come to the place where our only motivating factor is love, where enemies are no more, and we will recognize that we are in the kingdom of God, the peaceable kingdom. Talk about miracles!