The Mountain
Upon reading Isaiah 2...
Lord, raise up your mountain above all others. Nebuchadneezzar saw in fitful dreams a stone cut out by supernatural hands -- the same cornerstone rejected by many -- that ground to dust all other kingdoms and grew to fill the whole earth. This is your Kingdom, Jesus, root of Jesse, Son of David, King of kings, that is established by the hand of God and will never end. The highest mountain from which rivers of grace flow, fresh and clean and which receives the streams of the nation who come seeking God.
Upon this mountain, in this Kingdom, people will seek to learn your ways so they can walk in your paths. They will desire to join your life, identity, and work in the world. Peace will spread from this mountain. Not the thin peace of treaties and cease-fires, but the peace of productivity, of wholeness, and of life. What an amazing vision: that they will convert their tanks into tractors and their nuclear missiles into grain silos. Nation will no longer smart-bomb nation. Military contractors will go out of business and terrorist training camps will sit empty. Oh, let your Kingdom come, Lord. We need this kind of peace now. Come, people of the earth, let us walk in this light of the Lord.
But why does it seem like you are not with us? Why is it that you are not with us and we don't have this peace? We are full of silly ideas from NewAge dreamers -- superstitions and fantasies that help us build a religion of self and a spirituality of indulgence and complacency. We are romanced by psychics and wicans who peddle power they don't understand and flirt with demons. In our "enlightened" pluralism, we shake hands with those who would be the death of us. We trust military might thinking aircraft carriers and tanks and cruise missiles and ICBMs will potect us. We bow down and worship our technology, setting it up to rule our lives. The things our fingers have made become our masters.
So a day is coming when none of this will matter. We will have to face you exposed. Humanity will by and large run and hide when you show yourself. All that claims falsely to be the solution -- all the strategies and paper and plastic junk we trust in -- will be humbled and pealed away. People will toss what they think is so valuable, essential, and precious now to the rats. Like people fleeing in the path of a hurricane, they will run for cover leaving all that they once worshiped behind.
So what can we learn from this vision, Jesus? To stop trusting in man, and the clever gadgets and systems that he creates. What can we really do to save ourselves? Insurance will fail us. Money isn't worth its paper -- it is a promise easily broken. Might, if it is in men, is weak, always ready to fall in the face of the next opportunistic bully.
But you're mountain is a refuge. Your Kingdom is invisible yet close and indestructible. May we learn its ways, Discipler. May we walk its paths with you, Friend. Impress upon my soul the urgency of your Kingdom. Its peace is light in our darkness.
Lord, raise up your mountain above all others. Nebuchadneezzar saw in fitful dreams a stone cut out by supernatural hands -- the same cornerstone rejected by many -- that ground to dust all other kingdoms and grew to fill the whole earth. This is your Kingdom, Jesus, root of Jesse, Son of David, King of kings, that is established by the hand of God and will never end. The highest mountain from which rivers of grace flow, fresh and clean and which receives the streams of the nation who come seeking God.
Upon this mountain, in this Kingdom, people will seek to learn your ways so they can walk in your paths. They will desire to join your life, identity, and work in the world. Peace will spread from this mountain. Not the thin peace of treaties and cease-fires, but the peace of productivity, of wholeness, and of life. What an amazing vision: that they will convert their tanks into tractors and their nuclear missiles into grain silos. Nation will no longer smart-bomb nation. Military contractors will go out of business and terrorist training camps will sit empty. Oh, let your Kingdom come, Lord. We need this kind of peace now. Come, people of the earth, let us walk in this light of the Lord.
But why does it seem like you are not with us? Why is it that you are not with us and we don't have this peace? We are full of silly ideas from NewAge dreamers -- superstitions and fantasies that help us build a religion of self and a spirituality of indulgence and complacency. We are romanced by psychics and wicans who peddle power they don't understand and flirt with demons. In our "enlightened" pluralism, we shake hands with those who would be the death of us. We trust military might thinking aircraft carriers and tanks and cruise missiles and ICBMs will potect us. We bow down and worship our technology, setting it up to rule our lives. The things our fingers have made become our masters.
So a day is coming when none of this will matter. We will have to face you exposed. Humanity will by and large run and hide when you show yourself. All that claims falsely to be the solution -- all the strategies and paper and plastic junk we trust in -- will be humbled and pealed away. People will toss what they think is so valuable, essential, and precious now to the rats. Like people fleeing in the path of a hurricane, they will run for cover leaving all that they once worshiped behind.
So what can we learn from this vision, Jesus? To stop trusting in man, and the clever gadgets and systems that he creates. What can we really do to save ourselves? Insurance will fail us. Money isn't worth its paper -- it is a promise easily broken. Might, if it is in men, is weak, always ready to fall in the face of the next opportunistic bully.
But you're mountain is a refuge. Your Kingdom is invisible yet close and indestructible. May we learn its ways, Discipler. May we walk its paths with you, Friend. Impress upon my soul the urgency of your Kingdom. Its peace is light in our darkness.
posted by soulster at 3:24 PM
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