Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-december-19-2024
Isaiah 11:1-9
The Branch from Jesse
1A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
2The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
3and 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;
4but 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.
5Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
6The 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.
7The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
8The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.
9They 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.
You might remember that in one of our recent Reflections, we observed that during the Advent season we tend to give greater attention than usual to the prophecies of the Old Testament. That’s especially true of the prophecies from the book of the prophet Isaiah, which contains many of the prophecies about the coming of the promised Messiah. And during this season, our reading for today is a passage that the lectionary lists for worship and personal reflection.
In this prophecy about the coming of the Messiah, he is referred to as “a shoot from the stump of Jesse.” That’s a reference to the idea that the Messiah would be born into the family of King David. (You might remember that Jesse was David’s father.) In fact, this passage is the basis for one of the verses of the extended version of “Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel,” which is probably the most popular of all Advent hymns. We mentioned in that earlier Reflection that Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, was a descendant of King David. We also said that in our modern way of thinking, Jesus wasn’t really Joseph’s son, but that since Joseph named Jesus and raised him in his household, Jesus would be regarded as a “Son of David.”
The fact that the Messiah was to be a descendant of David was the source of great misunderstanding among the Jewish people about what that Messiah would be like. David was the greatest king and general in the history of the Hebrew people, so their expectation was that the Messiah would also be a great king and general. Their hope was that he would drive out the Romans and re-establish Israel as a free and independent state.
But when Jesus appeared on the scene and began his ministry, the nature of that ministry caused a great deal of confusion and frustration among those who heard him. When people began to believe he was the Messiah, they hoped he would drive out the Roman occupiers by military force, but instead he talked about loving your enemies and seemed to tell people it was proper to pay their taxes to the Romans. So, you might imagine what a disappointment he would have been to most patriotic Jews. He wasn’t at all the Messiah they expected.
It probably would have helped if people had taken more seriously prophecies like the one we’re reading and thinking about today. That’s because this passage paints a fairly clear picture of the true nature of the kingdom this Messiah came to proclaim. It wasn’t to be the Kingdom people hoped for. It would be a kingdom ‘not of this world’ – a kingdom in which God alone would be feared and worshipped. It would also be a reign in which the normal worldly ways of ranking people by wealth and power would be replaced by a new order based on justice and righteousness. In that Kingdom to come, the poor and needy would be cared for. And when that new Kingdom was brought to fulfillment, the savagery of this world to be replaced with God’s shalom, the holy peace.
That’s why Jesus wasn’t the Messiah his people expected – or hoped for, for that matter. He had come into the world to proclaim a new worldwide kingdom – a project much more important than freeing any single nation from the grasp of the Roman Empire. This Messiah had come to begin the establishment of the kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.
According to the Bible scholars, this prophecy we’re thinking about today was already 600 years old when Jesus was born. That would make it almost 2,600 years old now.
But even in the midst of a dirty and violent world, you can still see signs of the fulfillment of that kingdom. Almost of third of the human population now follows Jesus. Human sinfulness has often compromised work of the Jesus movement. But in spite of its many sins, no movement in human history has done so much to bring about justice and righteousness and human flourishing.
It’s no wonder, I guess, that this passage is read so often during Advent. And it’s probably no wonder that the followers of Jesus are the most hopeful people in the world.
Let’s pray. Lord, in this season of expectation and preparation, remind us that you are a God who has always kept your promises to your people. And in a world where turmoil and discord are all around, move us to live such hopeful lives that we reflect your light into the darkness around us. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
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