Monday, Nov 30: Peace and Security through Obedience

Micah 4:1-5

4 In days to come
    the mountain of the Lord’s house

 shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
    and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,

2   and many nations shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
    to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
    and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
    and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

 

3 He shall judge between many peoples,
    and shall arbitrate between strong nations

    far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
    and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
    neither shall they learn war any more;

4 but they shall all sit under their own

    vines and under their own fig trees,
    and no one shall make them afraid;
    for the mouth of the Lord of hosts

    has spoken.

5 For all the peoples walk, each in the name 

    of its god, but we will walk in the name of

    the Lord our God forever and ever.

Written by Anna Muhm

Anna is the Office Administrator of Samuel Church and a friend of the congregation.

I love Christmas carols and hymns. I love them so much that I sing them and listen to them year-round. During this pandemic, I have found listening to Christmas carols and hymns to bring me a peace and ability to focus on things that no other music genre has. I listen while I work and often sing them as lullabies to my son.

There are a few songs that I could listen to on repeat – and one of them is a new favorite from the Christian Rock group Casting Crowns. It’s a version of I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day which is based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow written at the height of the Civil War.  This version of the hymn brings an emphasis to the third and fourth verses that the traditional tune does not by focusing on one phrase over and over: Peace on Earth.

Today’s verse talks of Peace on Earth – when swords are beaten into plowshares. Peace on Earth – when spears are beaten into pruning hooks. Peace on Earth – when nations stop warring against each other. Peace on Earth – when we all rest in the shade of grape vines and fig trees. Peace on Earth.

But I often feel that Peace on Earth is something that can never happen. There is always hatred – of those who look different, act different, love different, speak different, worship different. There is always war. There is always division among us. More and more, we have used those divisions to divide us further, instead of building bridges to reach out. We exclude when Peace can only come by inclusion. We have made our brothers and sisters “other” and therefore easier to hate. We are a divided people right now in so many ways – how could there ever be Peace on Earth?