The Lion lays down with the Lamb.
Music: Salt of the Sound, Oh Holy Night Dear Gravity: Layer Upon Layer
Quite possibly my favourite passage in the book of Isaiah; I come back to it in my mind time and time again.
As we continue our journey through the foretelling of the coming of King Jesus, Isaiah gives us a glimpse into what a peaceable kingdom would look like.  Before we read today's passage, I do see what Isaiah is talking about when he talks about a lion lying down with a lamb.
Isaiah imagines a human world as if it were an animal Kingdom. This is referred to as Zoomorphism.
You can see zoomorphism represented in movies and stories such as Winnie the Pooh, where each animal has a human personality. The timid one is Piglet, the downtrodden one is a donkey, the excitable Tigger is a Tiger, and a wise old owl is watching over the Hundred Acre Wood.
We also see this used in the Scripture. One clear example is when the Holy Spirit descended like a dove.
In this scripture we are about to read, we aren’t seeing an ultimate peaceable heaven where a lion is no longer a carnivore and will eat grass alongside a lamb. If we literalize this poem, we are missing the point.
Isaiah sees the predatory nature of humanity. As we have already seen, Isaiah is deeply concerned with how the rich and powerful treat the vulnerable and the weak.
Today’s reading comes from Isaiah 11:6-9
The wolf will live with the lamb,  the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together;  and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear,  their young will lie down together,  and the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den,  and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. 9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
But do lions really ever lie down with lambs? Yes, they do! We see it in the ministry of Jesus. Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector in Jericho, was a wolf who worked for the Roman beast and got rich by cheating the poor. But when Jesus came to his house, the wolf in his heart was slain. When Zacchaeus pledged to give away half of his fortune and make four-fold restitution, the wolf was lying down with the lamb.
Saul of Tarsus was a lion violently devouring the flock of God, but when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus road, he not only stopped attacking the flock, he became a faithful shepherd. In Christ, Isaiah’s dream comes true, and the lion does lie down with the Lamb. Suppose the world is still dangerous because human predators behave beastly toward the vulnerable. In that case, it is because the earth is not yet full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea…so we continue to pray.
Take some time to imagine the scenario of the lion lying down with the lamb. Where in our world do we see an imbalance of power taking advantage of the weak?
Are you, at this moment, at the aching end of an imbalance of power? Pray for wisdom on how to move toward a proper resolution and find a way out of that situation.
Now lets us take a moment to search our hearts and see if there are times in our relationships with our family, friends or business partners when we may be on the hurtful end of a relationship. Perhaps, at times, we can be the lion.

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