The Promise of Peace

The Promise of Peace

The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

In days to come
  the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
  and shall be raised above the hills;
all the nations shall stream to it.
  Many peoples 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.
He shall judge between the nations,
  and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
  and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
  neither shall they learn war any more.

O house of Jacob,
  come, let us walk
  in the light of the Lord!

Isaiah 2:1-5

For some reason I can’t quite understand, I grew up with a fascination with Adolf Hitler. They say that evil is often more fascinating than good. Over the years I have watched many documentaries about the war and the Holocaust. I am equally appalled at both the banality of evil (to borrow from Hannah Arendt) but also its technocratic nature, its scientific thoroughness.

I grew up in the 70s fearing that passenger aircraft were actually jets carrying nuclear warheads. I guess the fear of war has always been a thing for me.  Fear was baked into my imagination early, and fear of war most of all. Advent often brings those childhood fears back to the surface, because Advent is a season where we look honestly at the world’s darkness while waiting for a different kind of light.

Isaiah called for a judgement of the nations and saw God’s instruction coming out of Zion. But when we look at the news, Isaiah’s vision feels painfully distant. While the history of the region is “complex” and a history of Christian culpability in antisemitism makes commenting fraught, it is difficult to baptise the violence in Palestine as God’s will. 

Advent is more than a hope for ceasefires and political solutions. Isaiah calls for a deeper peace, for swords to become plowshares: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Atheist. In Jesus, we see that the peace Isaiah saw flowing from a holy mountain now flows from a holy life. Jesus, the one called “God with us” tells us that the peacemaker is blessed. 

So at Advent we return to the place where my childhood fears, and our adult anxieties, meet God’s future. We remember that love breaks through—not from a distant mountain or a sacred temple, but from the living presence of Christ who makes his home among us and in us. A love that cuts through our darkest fears and deepest hatreds, calling all to the hard, holy work of peacemaking. May he guide you into the ways of peace, and show you what path you must take, so that together we might beat swords into plowshares and make war no more.

Dr Mick Pope is a meteorologist and ecotheologian. He has a PhD in meteorology and is currently working on a PhD examining the theology of mass extinction and the God-world relationship. He has four books on ecotheology, numerous chapters and journal articles, and hosts the podcast ‘The Natural Philosopher’. Mick lives on Wurundjeri Country, currently attends Brunswick Uniting, and is also a key member of Common Grace’s Creation and Climate Justice advisory group.

This devotional is the second in a series of daily email devotionals for Advent 2025 reflecting on the realities of our broken world along with the unshakable hope that love still breaks through. It explores how God’s love disrupts, heals, and transforms—breaking through darkness, despair, and injustice to bring light, joy, and renewal.

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Common Grace is a diverse movement of individuals, churches and communities passionate about Jesus and justice. We have come together as those from different Christian traditions who stand in the continuity of the historic Christian faith, centred on the life, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ as witnessed to in holy scripture. This series highlights the diversity of followers of Jesus across these lands. These voices may not agree with one another (or with you), but they are each an expression of longing for the God whose love we see break through in Jesus.

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