Mountain of Hope

November 30 | Donavon Hintz

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Advent means coming or arrival. It is a season when the Church slows down to anticipate and prepare for the second coming of Jesus. Today, as we light the first candle of Advent, the candle of Hope, we begin with Isaiah’s sweeping vision of God’s Kingdom: a hope for today and a hope for the world as it will be one day.

Isaiah delivers his message in a dark moment of Israel’s history. God’s people had repeatedly turned from His law and pursued the idols of the nations around them. Rather than trusting God for protection, they sought security through political alliances and military strength. Assyria loomed as a powerful threat. Yet in the middle of fear, rebellion and instability, Isaiah lifts their eyes to a different kind of future—a hope not built on human strategy, but on God’s rule.

The Vision

Isaiah’s vision is breathtaking: the nations streaming to the mountain of the Lord, living under God’s righteous rule in a world at peace. Weapons become tools for cultivation. Hostility gives way to harmony. There is no war, no fear, no division—only perfect peace under the reign of God. Isaiah uses imagery his hearers would have instantly recognized. Surrounding nations built temples on mountains, believing those high places were where heaven met earth. Israel had grown prideful in its identity as God’s chosen people. But Isaiah’s prophecy corrects them and expands their imagination: God’s mountain will rise above all others, and all peoples will come to Him.

The Calling

Advent is a moment for us to do the same—to lift our eyes beyond the noise, fear and chaos of our world, and to anchor ourselves in God’s promise. Isaiah’s picture was radical in his day, and it remains radical in ours. War persists. Fear persists. Sin and brokenness leave wounds at every level of society; yet, there is hope, and His name is Jesus.

When Jesus came the first time, He inaugurated His Kingdom—teaching, healing and ultimately giving His life and rising again. He called His followers into a new way of life: to be peacemakers, to love enemies, to pray for those who oppose them and to lay down their instinct for retaliation. These are not natural human actions; they are the work of the Holy Spirit forming Christ’s Kingdom within us.

The Hope

And one day, when Christ returns, His Kingdom will be fully realized. Wars will cease. Weapons will become instruments of peace. No group will dominate another. All people will live under the good and righteous rule of Jesus. True peace—God’s peace—will fill the earth.

Isaiah’s prophecy invites us to live as people shaped by the hope we have in this future with Jesus. We wait in full hope—longing for that day—and we walk in the light of the Lord. As we do, we become small foretastes of this coming Kingdom, witnesses to the world that Christ has come and Christ will come again.