Advent 2A
December 4, 2022
Isaiah 11:1-10
INTRODUCTION
If you were hoping we might get some warm fuzzies this second week of Advent where they were lacking last week… I’m sorry to disappoint. Actually, we will get some warm fuzzies, in our first reading from Isaiah. This is a classic Advent text: the image of the peaceable kingdom, where the wolf lies with the lamb, and other predators live in peace with their prey, and a little child shall lead them. It is what we hope for and picture when those angels sing to the shepherds in the fields, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace among those whom he favors.” And that description of a peaceful kingdom was very good news for Isaiah’s audience – I’ll be getting into the context in my sermon, so I won’t spoil it for you here… stay tuned!
As for the Gospel… this second Sunday of Advent we encounter John the Baptist in the wilderness and his cries for all to “repent!” You won’t see John in any of the nativities we bless after worship today, but he truly is a centerpiece of the Advent season. Difficult as his message of repentance is to hear, it is a necessary one in the preparation of our hearts. Today he says so quite extremely, saying that the ax is at the root of the tree, ready to cut down everything that doesn’t bear fruit (or maybe it already has begun its chopping – it’s unclear). Either way: yikes.
I don’t love these stump images during this season, but they, too, are important, and even hopeful ones, to aid in our preparation for Christ’s coming. And yes, the God who comes to us “out of the blue” can come to us even in a stump. As you listen, recall some of the dead ends you have encountered, and how they ultimately directed you down the path of new life. Let’s listen.
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| Peace, by William Strutt |
Grace to you and peace from the One who is and who was and who is to come. Amen.
When I was a kid, my parents had a wonderful picture above our piano that I loved. It is a work called simply, “Peace,” by artist William Strut, and is his depiction of today’s reading from Isaiah: a child in a white dress is at the center, and she is surrounded by all kinds of animals – a cow, a lion, a wolf, a lamb. I loved it because of the child, because seeing that made me, as a child, feel important. I was also smart enough to know that it was strange for all these animals to be together, and the possibility that they could be was simply captivating.
Now as someone who knows more about the Bible than I did as a child, I have an even greater appreciation for this image. It continues to be a beautiful and captivating one. But now what I find so compelling about it comes from this part of the passage that precedes the description of the Peaceable Kingdom, because that part gives some context for why that image is so important.
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” To understand the magnitude of this opening sentence, the first thing we need to know is, who is Jesse? Jesse is the father of King David. You may remember David from such stories as, David and Goliath, or more scandalously, David and Bathsheba. (Side note: if you don’t know that second story, be sure to come to Bible study today, as that is the story we’ll be learning about!) David didn’t start off famous; he was a shepherd, born in a little town called Bethlehem, but then became the third king of Israel, and the greatest. He’s a complex character, not without his faults and sins, but overall is considered a great and righteous king of Israel. What is significant about him for today, and for the season of Advent, is that Hebrew scripture says that the messiah promised by God to the Israelites would be from the House of David, a direct descendant of King David (a.k.a. Jesse’s son).
Everyone with me so far? Okay, now, fast forward a couple hundred years to the 8th century BCE, when Isaiah is writing the text we hear today. Since David, the Israelites have had a string of bad kings. Their current king, Ahaz, was making some terrible choices. The Northern Kingdom of Israel has likely already been destroyed at this point, and now the Assyrian army is in position to decimate Judah, the Southern Kingdom as well, and with it, Jerusalem. And here comes this prophet to make some sense out of what was happening. “God is using the Assyrians,” he explains, “to decimate this unfaithful people, until there is only a mere remnant remaining.” (You know, real cheery stuff.) He tells them this by means of a metaphor, comparing the proud of Jerusalem (all those bad kings) to a forest of trees that will be chopped down. “He will hack down the thickets of the forest with an ax, and Lebanon with its majestic trees will fall.” Merry Christmas, everyone! You can imagine how the Israelites might be feeling right about now: enemies attacking, and no sign of the Davidic messiah they have so longed for. They are, no doubt, feeling pretty hopeless.
Let’s just stop here for a minute and let that sink in. Even though this all happened centuries ago, hopelessness is not something in any way foreign to us. That feeling of being at the end of your rope, with nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to. You’re out of ideas. You’re out of energy. You’re out of time. Hopeless. It is such a precarious place to be. It can look sad and alone, it can feel chaotic and overwhelming. It can feel like the brink between win and lose, between yes and no, even between life and death. However it looks, hopelessness is hard, and a state we will do anything to avoid.
Back to our story – that hopeless state is where the Israelites are: under enemy attack, with no trust in their short-sighted leader, with no sign that a Messiah might ever come to save them, and surrounded by the stumps of so many failed leaders.
And that is when they hear these words from Isaiah: “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Here, in the midst of war, they hear a word of hope: the savior promised to you will come. Jesse’s family tree, the line that you thought was dead, is not dead. There is life in it. There is hope sprouting out of it.
Have you ever seen that in nature? A little piece of life sprouting out from somewhere you would otherwise think life is impossible? A dandelion pushing through the pavement, perhaps? Or a tree growing out of a rock?
There was a couple in my first call, who shared a wonderful story about new life sprouting. When they first moved to Webster some 50 years ago, they planted four trees, one for each member of the family. The tree planted for their son Mike was a beautiful, flowering crabapple tree, with twin trunks that blossomed each year. As a young adult, Mike became very ill and eventually he died from a brain tumor. At the same time, his tree, too, started to get diseased. Some time after Mike’s passing, during a wind storm, one of the twin trunks was broken… But then to their surprise, they began to see a new shoot growing out of that broken trunk, as if it was a sign that Mike was still very much alive, living a new sort of life. That shoot grew for a couple more years. Then, one day, when that couple was preparing to move from Webster to Boston, they heard a loud crack. They went outside to see that the entire diseased part of the tree had blown over, and all that was left was that one, new shoot, still standing strongly, and reminding them of the new life that their son was living.
Stories like this – they have a profound ability to bring hope to a previously hopeless situation. One ray of light in the midst of darkness. One beginning in the midst of endings. One yes in the midst of so many nos. One sprout in the midst of hopelessness.
And at this, Isaiah goes on to describe who and what that sprout will be, what hope he brings, and the resulting Peaceable Kingdom, the image that so captivated me as a child: a place where lambs and wolves lie down beside each other, where babies and snakes, enemies since creation, can enjoy tummy-time together, where bears and cattle graze side-by-side, and where a little, innocent child, can lead them all. Where no one is attacking anyone else, physically or emotionally, where people no longer hunger, and where everyone lives in the righteousness of God. A place where there is, in a word, peace. This peaceable kingdom, Isaiah says, will be possible.
And is it? Do you believe it is? Have you ever seen a glimpse of this kingdom? A kind word from a notoriously nasty co-worker? A shared laugh with a friend, that has the effect of lifting some of the weight from your shoulders? A chance to spend quality time with someone you know won’t be around forever? Glimpses like these can’t always make the pain go away. But they can provide just that little bit of hope we need to continue on, and if they cannot take the pain away, at least that hope can bring us some sense of peace in our hearts.
Fast-forward another 800 years. The emperor at the time, Caesar Augustus, put out a decree that everyone should go to his hometown to be registered. There was a man named Joseph, who was engaged to be married to a young woman named Mary, who was with child. Since Joseph was a descendant of David, he had to travel with his pregnant fiancé to Bethlehem, the birthplace of his ancestor, David. And while they were there in Bethlehem, Mary gave birth to a son, and they named him Jesus, Emmanuel, which means, “God is with us.”
Let us pray. God of all the ages, there are so many things that would try to steal our hope and leave us in despair. When we start to slip into hopelessness, give us glimpses of you, like a shoot growing from a stump, to remind us that you are Emmanuel, God-with-us. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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