This is not Wyle E. Coyote's anvil, though when I think about it, that's probably where most of my exposure to anvils came from as a kid: Road Runner cartoons. No, this is Isaiah's anvil, as in Isaiah 2:4: They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.
Isaiah 2:1-5 was the Old Testament reading for the first Sunday in Advent in the Revised Common Lectionary this year. And we heard it at CtK last night during our Advent Evening Prayer. Perhaps the sound of sledgehammer meeting anvil is a better soundtrack for Advent than jingle bells and cash register drawers (thanks to Rolf Jacobson for talking about Jim Liburg's sermon with the mother of all object lessons: an anvil in the sanctuary).
Can you imagine a world where no one learns war anymore? Where soldiers aren't trained to kill, children are not left orphans or dead as collateral damage casualties themselves, where women aren't victims of sexual assault as a weapon of war, and the whole world actually lives in peace?
Isaiah can imagine it. The prophet has seen it in a vision from God.
May God grant us faith in the coming Prince of Peace, and hope so sure that we can start using that anvil, even now. Come, Lord Jesus.
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