Edward Hicks The Peaceable Kingdom 
As I write this issue of Faith Focus, North Korea has just fired upon South Korea. Two people are dead. My first reaction to the news was to mutter to myself, "This is no peaceable kingdom." Despite the present gloom, Hicks' memorial painting still carries within it an indelible vision of hope.
Hicks' inspiration for The Peaceable Kingdom was Isaiah's Chapter 11 where Isaiah looked out at a burned over battlefield and saw a stump still standing. Rather than despair, Isaiah pointed to the stump and shouted, "There, see it! A green shoot is growing! It is the shoot of Jesse, King David's father." And from the shoot came Isaiah's vision of a new day, of God's reign, when the lion and the lamb would lie down together.
I yearn for a Kingdom where there are no more border skirmishes in Korea, no more Palestinian rockets or Israeli retaliations, no more Americans coming home from Afghanistan dead or broken, no more civil wars and terrorist activities.
Despair or Advent hope? This Advent, let us join together as we yearn for The Peaceable Kingdom.
In faith,
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