12/12/2025
Isaiah 11:1-10
6 The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
The poet-prophet Isaiah imagines a time to come when there is, literally, no violence, no human brutality, no animal ferocity. It’s a time when all creation learns a new way of being led by “a little child” (v6). No wonder we associate this Advent passage with the coming of the infant Jesus.
Advent is a time to think out of the box, to reject the status quo, to yearn for a dramatically different world, and to pursue it. That is what is meant when we hear the Advent admonition, “Repent.”
