Pondering the Word
Can a Story End War?
By Ray Friesen
Can a story be so powerful that it can stop war?
That question confronted me a few years ago as I was listening to John McDiarmid sing an oft-told story of World War I. It was Christmas and, during a lull in the fighting, British troops heard singing from the German side. Recognizing it as a song of the season, they responded with “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” When the Germans replied with “Stille Nacht” the Brits joined in with “Silent Night.” “In two tongues,” sang McDiarmid, “one song filled up the sky.” Soon, troops spilled out of the trenches and threw a party, complete with chocolates, gifts, and a friendly game of soccer.
An ever-expanding dream.
Could it really be that a story is so powerful that it can stop war? The prophet Isaiah seemed to think so. In the Old Testament readings for this Advent he sketches that hope-filled and hope-generating dream for us. In the way these texts are presented to us, it is a dream that just keeps getting bigger and bigger, more powerful and more engaging, till one can barely hold the dream without bursting!
In 2:1-5 the prophet pictures the Temple Mount as the center of the world as it draws all nations to itself for instruction in God’s ways. The result: swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks—an end to war. In 11:1-10 we encounter a different picture but the same dream, grown bigger. Out of the royal line of David, now reduced to an almost dead stump, there will come a new king who is filled with the Spirit of God. The actions of this charismatic ruler will result in justice and equity. The text does not say how, but knowledge of God and God’s ways will sweep across the nations and all violence and danger will end. All will experience safety and security—in home, in community, in the world.
Isaiah 35:1-10 enlarges the dream even further. Not only will there be an end to war, violence, and danger. Now, God will reverse all the violence that humans have wreaked, and all the pain they have experienced. Creation, along with wounded human hearts and spirits—all will be healed. The desert will bloom, blind eyes will see, deaf ears will hear, speechless tongues will sing, and crippled limbs will dance. With deep longing we cry out: Can this really be? How? The prophet tells us in 7:10-16: A child will be born, Immanuel, God with us. He will make the dream come true.
Tuned in to reality
Advent and Christmas are times for dreaming dreams. In the music of the season, in the excitement of the children, in the hint of angels, somewhere we sense that more is possible than seems apparent to the naked eye. That very sense is an invitation to see beyond the immediate to what might be possible.
And yet, how easily reality imposes itself on us! War, brokenness, fear, despair, and all their relatives are our regular companions. We become convinced that the dream cannot be, thinking it is but a figment of our imagination.
Look again at Isaiah. He knew well the sounds of war and weeping, fear and despair. The dream that caught his spirit and sent it soaring was set in the middle of all that would kill the dream. The poem of chapter 2 comes right after the fearful judgment of chapter 1. Chapter 11 follows immediately upon the terror of 10:33-34. The sign of the child—Immanuel—given in chapter 7 is given to a king who refuses to engage God in the possibility of hope. The real world is the context in which Isaiah’s dreams burst forth with such incredible hope and healing. If Isaiah could dream the dream in his world, we can dream it in ours.
Even as Isaiah’s dream fills our imaginations, reading the Gospel texts for Advent assures us that God fulfills that dream. The instruction that Isaiah saw going forth from Zion (2:3) is the story of Immanuel—“God with us.” Knowledge of that story of the baby will make it possible for tanks to be transformed into combines and for children to play with wolf cubs. At the sound of the story arthritic knees will be loosed in dance. Many tongues will be loosed and “one song will fill the sky.”
The possibility of putting an end to war and bringing healing to the nations are seeded in that story. The telling of the story will cause the sprout to grow. By the power of the Spirit that Isaiah dreamed into the king, the story can become real and fill the earth, “as the waters cover the sea.”
Ray Friesen and his wife, Sylvia, are co-pastors
at Zion Mennonite Church in
Swift Current, Saskatchewan.