New Kingdom Coming

Many times throughout the day yesterday, I cupped her tiny little face in my hands and kissed her soft cheeks, and smelled her freshly washed hair, and thanked God that my Kindergartener was safe in her home.  Twenty mother’s today grieve their babies.  Their soft skin and their smell.  I can’t imagine.

Tonight we read our Jesse Tree devotional and the title for today was  “New Kingdom Come”.  The scripture passage was from Isaiah 11:1-9.  I read the passage aloud to the kids.  I began, “A new branch will grow from a stump of a tree; so a new king will come.”  I continued to read, “Then wolves will live in peace with lambs, and leopards will lie down to rest with goats….Cows and bears will eat together…A baby will be able to play near a cobra’s hole, and a child will be able to put his hands into the nest of a poisonous snake.”  As I was reading, images from the TV and newspapers flashed into my head, scenes from my dream crept into my mind.  And then I read, “They will not hurt or destroy each other on all my holy mountain, because the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the sea is full of water.”.  I couldn’t finish.  My kids sat quiet as their mother sobbed tears of sadness, of grief, of confusion, of hope, and of longing expectation. 

 

“Can you feel it in the air this time of year?  Can’t you hear it in the wind, the whispering rumors of a new kingdom coming?  A world of peace, where a leopard lies quiet with a goat.  Do you believe the good news of a new paradise coming where a toddler plays happy at the hole of the cobra and a child will dangle his hand in the nest of the asp, and the enemy snake that once bit us with the poison of sin in the Garden of Eden will be nothing more than a playmate to the laughing.  This time of year sings with the hope! How do we go up this holy mountain where no one hurts another and perfect peace reigns?  He who is the Christ Child will lead us.” Ann Voskamp 

Today more than ever, Christ Child lead us.  To a place where no one hurts another.  Where kids don’t kill kids and kids don’t kill their mothers.  A place were we live in perfect peace.  Oh Lord, we wait in eager expectation for a new kingdom coming.