Is.2:1-5 First Sunday in Advent

 

OK, one could apply new year hopes to this passage. Also, after Christ the King, God is not referred to as king in the OT passage.

 

1) A fun intertextual exercise is to compare and contrast this to Micah 4. See also Psalm 46

2) The mountain probably means the temple Mt, Zion. see Ps. 46,48,122, for instance, among a number of others. This does again push us to consider church/state relations. In this case, are we being propelled into a notion that agreement on a faith is a requirement for peaceful resolutions of conflicts?

3) God sounds like the UN or the World Court here.

4) I crave this vision. Where did it appear with Christ, and where do we wait for it still? (Note Advent waiting, but days to come is the better reader, an indefinite future, rather than the NIVs annoying insistence on the last days to push a particular reading) I like learn war better than train, but that is a rhetorical preference. I'm not sure about the actual translation, at this point.. Instruction is better than law in v. 3.

5) Please pay some attention to Moltmann's distinction between advent and future in the Coming of God. Christopher Morse makes use of it in an excellent new book (I am only partway through it) The Difference Heaven makes.

6) Where does worship enact this vision?

7)In personal terms what aspects of personal life need to be transformed into peaceful implements, such as one's tongue, fist, attitude? (see Serendipity Bible on these)
8) In political terms, when have you seen swords into plowshares? Look to some of Sen. Lugar's initiatives