I know I will be showing my age, here. However, I can remember back when former Secretary of State Henry Kissenger described the super-powers of the world as so many heavily armed blind men who are locked in a room, each terrified of what the others can do, each groping and stumbling around trying to find a way out, but none are willing to converse with the others, none are willing to help the others, none are willing to lay down their own weapons. Each of them hoping desperately that no one will start shooting. All of them wanting peace, but afraid and uncertain as to what to do.

The recent events in our nation and in our world have made the picture even more complicated. Now, not only are there heavily armed blind men groping about in the room that is our world. Now there are blind men who were not previously heavily armed but who have seized weapons from others and have started shooting, hoping that those more heavily armed will also start shooting and will kill each other.

Until the last few months, there was some hope that we human beings were actually making some significant progress toward peace. More people in more countries around the world were turning their hearts, minds, and actions toward the quest for peace. The threat of nuclear war had diminished substantially. In a number of nations, progress had been made against racism as well as religious and ethnic violence. With so many on the quest for peace, it seemed like it would be more easily found. Now, peace seems to have eluded us as a species, yet again. The harder we work for peace, the closer we get to peace, the more violence seems to spread. Not even the United States has escaped the horror.

To continue the metaphor, it seems evident that, in the locked room, even those who seek peace are just as blind as the heavily armed men. We all grope for the wall, to steady ourselves, to try to find a door or window or some other way out of the ghastly circumstances in which we find ourselves. In the darkness of our blindness, in our growing fear of everything and everyone, those who are armed can no longer tell who is really unarmed and who is genuinely seeking peace. The room just seems darker, more dangerous, and ever so much more crowded. There seems to be more of which to be afraid. What were not considered weapons have been used as instruments of mass destruction. The terror has increased. Now, shots have been fired. The questions are, who will return fire, when, how much and will it all get out of control?

It's increasingly obvious that, one way or another, the current situation cannot continue to prevail. The quest for peace is not something simple. It should not be approached with simple-minded answers. It seems ever so important that we realize that the quest for peace is no more and no less than the search for God. The Prophet Isaiah says much that we need to hear as we seek peace and seek God.

I) The Human Condition

a) The prophet describes the way we are as human beings. It is not a pretty picture. Sadly, it is an inclusive picture. "We" are the "you" the prophet addresses, the ones separated from God, with dirty hands, lying lips, unconcerned with justice or truth, full of mischief, running to evil with wasting and destruction in our paths, and, ignorant of the way of peace.

b) The prophet says: "So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for light, but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall, feeling our way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away." ( Is 59:9-11)

II) The Peace Process

a) The peace process that the prophet advocates looks nothing at all like what we most often do today.

b) In order to discover peace, we are in need of facing up to ourselves, to who we really are, as individuals and as a nation and as nations, all of us all around this world. The picture that we see of ourselves will not be very pretty. We will be greatly tempted to deny the picture we see; however, we need to come to that place when we admit: "For our offenses are many in your sight, and our sins testify against us. Our offenses are ever with us, and we acknowledge our iniquities." (Isa 59:12)

c) What the prophet describes is a destitute people. No matter how good we may look, we are people who are so far gone that we can no longer even imagine helping ourselves much less each other

d) The prophet describes the Lord as unable to find "one". That "one" is "the head of the household," a person of responsibility or understanding. The prophet describes the Lord as being surprised that no one would intercede, no one would plead our case or champion our cause, as human beings. There is only the darkness, the roar, the tears.

e) So the Lord becomes the Champion and Judge, the one who brings repayment to those who have done evil. It is the Lord who does justice, even when we cannot do it ourselves. Remember, the prophet has already presented the case against us, and no one is innocent. God becomes judge because we do not judge ourselves. We cannot become innocent. We can only become one in the fellowship of those who recognize our true condition.

f) There is only one thing more difficult than admitting our own errors, failures, and flaws, our own sins. That one thing is repentance - changing the direction of our lives.

g) Yet the prophet says, that the Redeemer, the one who pays the price for our failures and assures us an inheritance among the Children of God, will come to us that turn, that change our direction from transgression to journey toward God along the way of peace.

III) The Covenant and Promise …

The Lord makes an agreement with us, a promise that the Lord's Spirit and prophetic word will never leave us. That means there is always hope for our finding "the path of peace" and for our finding God.

These are dark days indeed. In the darkness, we have seen both the worst and the best of who we are as human beings. We find ourselves forced into facing new and ugly realities. We find ourselves realizing that things will never be the same as they were before. There will be more suspicion, more distrust, more caution, more vigilance, more anxiety, and a greater demand for responsibility and understanding for most of us in the world.

The questions fly as to what we will do and how we will live. The answers will not be simple. We will not be able to hide in the extremes of either pacifism or war-mongering ... as either doves or hawks. We will not be able to take refuge in assertions of personal innocence or righteousness, saying that we cannot get involved because of what we believe. I'm not saying that we must jump on the war "bandwagon" or that we must embrace violence as the only solution to the current terrorist situation . What I am saying is that our circumstances involve ever so much more than matters of retribution and vengeance. Our circumstances are these: "If we know who a murderer is, and we allow that murderer to kill again, we have become accomplices to the crime."

Let us not try to fool ourselves. There is no such thing as Holy War. War means we human beings have totally failed at all God wants for us and demands of us. There is no such thing as a "just" war. War adds to the vast heap of human crimes, iniquities and sufferings ... and at the end of the violence, people still have not found justice. War is a symptom of our failure to find God. Now, war means that we step ever closer to annihilating ourselves.

Now, it is for us to repent, to change the direction of our lives from whatever else we have been doing to head toward God.

Now, it is for us to become responsible, mature, understanding people so that when the God looks, our Lord will actually see a functioning adult, someone who can talk to God about more than him or her self and plead the case, intercede for the human cause.

Now, it is for us to welcome the Redeemer, to allow the Spirit to come upon us, to both say and do the words that our Redeemer has given us. His words are the paradoxical ones exhorting us: to self-transcending Love, to justice, to mercy, and to peace. We know the Redeemer is Jesus.

Now, as the prophet says in the next chapter of his book, is to time to Arise, shine, for our light has come.

Amen