plowshares

General Douglas MacArther said something like, “No one more than a soldier prays for peace, for it is he who must pay the ultimate price of war.” I thought about that a lot in the 25 years that I was a soldier and have wondered often why the most hawkish people on the news and on social media are the ones who have never worn a uniform.

I think civilians in America have a very different view of war than in most of the world. For us wars are fought over there, giving us the freedom to engage in impassioned debate about rights and wrongs and what our national strategy should be. For most, war is fought at home, disrupting services, bringing shortages, disrupting the kids’ education, maybe destroying homes. 

The Israelites had experienced plenty of that kind of war. They had been subject to annual raids by the Midianites in Gideon’s time, were constantly at war with the Philistines for most of the lifetime of King David, and would be plundered by the Assyrians and the Babylonians.  For them, Isaiah 2:3-4 must have been a jaw-dropping, tear-bringing promise:

“Many peoples will come and say,

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the temple of the God of Jacob.

He will teach us his ways,

so that we may walk in his paths.’

The law will go out from Zion,

the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He will judge between the nations

and will settle disputes for many peoples.

They will beat their swords into plowshares

and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation will not take up sword against nation,

nor will they train for war anymore.”

It’s one of my favorite images in scripture: old soldiers, back home on the farm with their wives and children, and maybe grandchildren, using hooked spears to cut back their olive trees and grape vines. Swords, reformed to cut sod instead of flesh, used to prepare fields for planting. I picture sunshine and fellowship and honest sweat. And no fear.

Someday there will be no wars. There will be no armies. There will be no defense budgets, no departments dedicated to homeland security. God will be our guarantee of peace, and at that time no man or woman will ever again train to harm another.

That’s another reason we needed Christmas – because in our sin, sometimes we’d rather kill each other than co-exist. The peace of this passage can only come when sin has been conquered. This old soldier is eager to see that day. Watch and wait.