Homily for December 9, 2007 Second Sunday of Advent

This is going to be show and tell today. I want to concentrate on the first reading, and as Glenn said, in your bulletin you will have the complete text of that first reading, as well as a copy of this woodcut.
The wood cut is by an artist named Fritz Eichenberg, who did a whole series of woodcuts for The Catholic Worker. Does anybody know about The Catholic Worker? It's a newspaper founded by Dorothy Day. This wood cut is a portrayal of the first reading. I'm going to just walk through and show it to you and ask you what you see and notice. If you've got the bulletin, you can look at it in the bulletin.
What stands out as you look at the picture? The lion right in the middle, big and menacing looking. But look at what's underneath the lion, a little baby playing by the hole of the snake, and the snake crawling toward the baby. What else do you notice?
Pure peace, and of course in the reading from Isaiah, the implication is, when we have learned wisdom and understanding and knowledge of God, when we have learned to judge rightly, especially for the poor, then all of creation will be at peace. And it will be a peace that will even extend to the wild beasts and the domestic animals. There will be no ruin or harm.
What else do you notice? There's a city. Is there? Oh, yeah, off to the left there's a city. I didn't notice that.
I'm struck by the wolf and the lamb being together. You see the cow and the bear. The Quaker artist Edward Hicks had a whole series of paintings like this. They're very popular in Quaker circles, and they were called The Peaceable Kingdom. In many of his paintings, across the river there is William Penn, making the peace treaty with the Native Americans in Pennsylvania.
Now, I want to invite your imagination. If you've got the picture in front of you, look at the wolf and the lamb. What do you think that lamb is thinking? "I wish he would quit drooling like that. I sure hope his mouth doesn't get any closer. Why does he look at me like that?"
What do I think the wolf is thinking? "How long? I sure am tired of this hay. Lamb chops would be really good." Right?
What do you think the baby is thinking? "The bunny is cute." Okay. The baby is thinking, "I wish I could pet the wolf."
In Edward Hicks' series of paintings, the child is walking and is leading, and the animals are following. And one simulation I was exposed to in this reading had the child say, "Where am I going, and what am I going to do if they don't follow?"
If you could project yourself into that scene, I'm sure you could have myriads of feelings, ranging from confusion to fear to being a little leery of everybody around you, and it would be very easy to get all wrapped up in those feelings.
When we look at the world around us, often, don't we feel like lambs among wolves? Don't we feel the insecurity, the threat? Or aren't we exposed to people who maybe think, "If God didn't intend them to be sheared, he wouldn't have made them sheep." You've all heard that phrase, right? Or maybe we don't know quite where to go.
Well, I think the overwhelming message I want to leave you with today is the good news is that it's not all about us and what we feel and what we do. But it's about what God wants for our world. And the message of the prophet is that God will do it. We don't know how, we don't know when, we don't know where, but God wants peace and justice for our world and for us, and God has promised it. The challenge is, can we let that hope and that trust enter into our hearts and guide us?