Sunday, April 19, 2009

The wolf will live with the lamb


I've been updating my painting blog lately. Mostly because people keep asking me if I have a website, and if I gave them this one, I'm guessing my phone would pretty much quit ringing. Anyway, I have already scheduled several posts and am working on some more. One of my favorite nurseries is one I did for Grace Presbyterian Church. I painted three rooms, each with a different bible theme. I knew I wanted the infant nursery to have baby animals, so I decided to use Isaiah 11:6. I will post all the pictures next Sunday over on Stuff I Painted.

I must confess, prophetic scripture passages aren't exactly my strength, and when I read this passage, I knew it would work for what I wanted to do in the nursery space, but I never really understood what the verse meant. It's actually pretty cool. In the interest of context, here's Isaiah 11: 1-9:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD - and he will delight in the fear of the LORD.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.

He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.


The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the hole of the cobra, and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

I love this scripture because rather than describing Jesus as coming from the Kingdom of David, it uses the more humble description of "the stump of Jesse". It also tells me that there will come a time when wickedness and evil will be destroyed; that Love really does win.

Feel free to expound on the commentary of this portion of scripture in the comments section. I'd love to read your thoughts on it. Happy Sunday, y'all!

6 comments:

Stephanie Wetzel said...

I think you meant Isaiah 11:1-9. I only know that because I actually memorized Isaiah 6:8, and I don't remember any baby animals in that passage. ;)

Love your painting! Very talented!

katdish said...

Steph -

Yep, thanks. I must have been channeling Sherri or something...

Helen said...

That is a beautiful passage.

I love the imagery of how safe the innocent young children are---so different from today's world where there innocence has to be fought for practically from birth.

Billy Coffey said...

As I was reading over your post, a nosy art professor here at the college stopped by to make fun of my pathetic Yankees. That's the bad news. The good news is that I made him take a look at this and what you have at your other site, and he asked me where you went to art school. I wasn't sure how to answer that, but he said you put his students to shame.

Trust me, I know this man well. And that's a high compliment.

By the way, I think you have an amazing talent, too. I just thought you'd value a professor's opinion over someone who can barely draw a smiley face. I know I would.

katdish said...

Billy,

Tell your professor I was rather fond of coloring as a kid, but have no formal training. I hired someone to paint a mural in my first child's room. After watching her, I said to myself, "Well, I could totally do that!"

I never had any aspirations to paint for a living (and I use that term loosely). It just sort of happened. Thanks for sharing that with me.

Beth said...

PLEASE COME AND PAINT MY HOUSE! HELP! SOS!

I always have these ideas...and I probably COULD do them...it just always falls absolutely last on my things to do and my poor kids have sad little non-descript rooms. Well, the baby room is cute, but it totally needs a lion and a lamb with all the other animals dancing around in there.

Okay, I know I was supposed to comment on the scripture, which is very cool passage, but I'm kind of grumpy and sickly today.