Isaiah 11:1-10
We are in the season of Advent.
A season of waiting. Of hoping. Of longing.
This is my first season of Advent while serving a congregation as Pastor. So I am reflecting quite a bit about what this waiting should look like? How should it feel?
We just finished a sermon series about a people who were waiting at the border, a people waiting for God to act, waiting for God to bring them into the land of promise and abundance.
But now we are the ones who find ourselves waiting on the border of something new. We are the people who are waiting for God to act, to cross the border between heaven and earth, to lead us into a promised future.
So how should we wait?
During this Advent season we turn to the book of Isaiah, and what I am discovering is that these words from Isaiah are quite instructive. Like us, Isaiah is waiting. Waiting for God to act, waiting for justice, waiting for peace. But Isaiah does not wait passively for God’s coming to earth.
Isaiah’s waiting is an active waiting. It is a waiting and a hoping. A waiting and an envisioning. A waiting and a speaking.
Last week Mike led us through a passage in which we were introduced to Isaiah’s way of active waiting. Waiting with a nation under attack, Isaiah actively imagined a preferred future in which there would be no more war.
It was while the enemy army marched toward the city gates that Isaiah actively imagined a preferred future in which the military marches would be replaced by parades of peacefulness.
It was while military equipment was being manufactured and the guns loaded that Isaiah actively imagined a preferred future in which guns could be melted down to make bicycles. A preferred future in which there would be no need for a second amendment.
And what struck me last week was how Isaiah’s active imagination could so easily break the bounds of the rational. Isaiah’s vision for a preferred future is absurd, unreasonable, dare we say impossible.
This morning, in this advent season, we are invited again to step into Isaiah’s active imagination. With Isaiah, we are invited to actively wait and actively hope for the impossible possibility of a new creation.[1]
1 “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.6 The wolf shall live with the lamb,
Isaiah 11:1-10
the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze,
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
9 They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain;
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
10 On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.”
We still have 17 days until Christmas, but this morning we get to open up a gift. It comes to us from Isaiah; it is gift-wrapped in the pages of Scripture.
In one verse we take off the wrapping paper…. And…. what we see is a stump.
Akward. This was not on our wish list.
We look at the stump and feign a smile, trying to trick Isaiah into thinking we like it.
To be honest we are a little upset. Isaiah didn’t even give us the accompanying gift of an axe. What good is a stump except to turn it into fuel for a fire?
We look at the stump and all we see is death.
All the visible signs of life have been cut off. The fruit has fallen. The branches cut.
Like a neighborhood in which white-flight and divestment has left it barren and boarded up, the stump is an eyesore.
Like a community in which over-policing has cut down breadwinners and role models, the stump is a reminder of lost potential.
We wonder: why would Isaiah gives us a stump?
But the stump is not our gift. The stump is our reality.
We don’t have to remove any wrapping paper to realize we live in a world where stumps surround us. Death and decay all around us.
Abandoned public school buildings stand like stumps in poor communities.
Olive Trees bulldozed for the construction of illegal Israeli settlements scar the occupied west bank with stumps.
Relationships cut down with angry words or hurtful actions, produce stumps of silence in our broken family systems.
Yes, the stumps are our reality. And the stumps seem undeniably dead.
Isaiah is quick to remind us that there is more to life than just the stumps. While the stumps are obvious to see, there is more that exists under the ground. On the surface, the tree may appear to be dead, but under the ground the roots continue to grow.
The roots, while a nice surprise, are also not the gift. The Roots are also a part of our reality.
For every stump like situation, for every divested community in the US, for every underfunded school, for every choked-out and check-pointed city in the West Bank, there are roots that exist under the surface. The roots are rarely seen. They are rarely acknowledged, but they are there, keeping the stump alive.
Stumps and Roots. These are realities that we will encounter this advent season. Stumps and Roots, Death and Life, Despair and Hope. These our are realities, just as they were realities for Isaiah.
But in his waiting, Isaiah chose to see beyond the stump. In his active envisioning Isaiah was able to see the invisible Spirit of God at work. In his waiting Isaiah saw and spoke of a Spirit that could make the impossibility of new life possible.
And this is our gift this morning. It is the gift of the Spirit.
Our gift is a Spirit that provides breathing room for the roots. A Spirit that prevents the roots from rotting or being crushed. A Spirit that takes what should be dead and decaying, and produces a shoot that is growing and blooming.
This is our gift.
In the first verse of our passage we unwrap this image of a stump, roots, and a shoot. It is Isaiah’s advent image and it is out advent image. It is an image that we can see and that Anne has painted. It is an image that we can hold onto and carry with us in our waiting.
In one verse Isaiah gives us enough for a whole advent sermon. The image of the stump and the roots, the gift of the Spirit and the shoot, this should give us enough hope to get us through another week of waiting.
But Isaiah is not done. Isaiah is not content to give us a one image or a single metaphor. Isaiah invites us to move beyond a general hope for new life, and step into a specific expectation.
For if we look closely, we realize that Isaiah has not given us any old stump. This stump has an inscription. Isaiah explicitly identifies this stump as the stump of Jesse. Jesse the father of King David.
By identifying this tree, Isaiah takes us beyond the vaguely spiritual, but ventures into the pointedly political. The shoot that comes from this tree, is not just a sign of new life, it is the sign of a new king, of political change.
From the Trunk of King David, Isaiah envisions a new politician whose rise to power won’t be backed by donor dollars, but a politician who will be carried into office by a spirit of wisdom and understanding. A leader who does not present as fearless, but a leader who fears God.
Isaiah envisions a politician whose campaign platform is built upon justice for the poor and equity for the oppressed. Isaiah envision a politician who opens their mouth and calls out the corrupt, who gives speeches that declares the greedy guilty.
Could such a politician ever take office? Could justice for the poor ever win someone an election?
Rather than passively waiting for such a politician to rise up from an ivy-league school, Isaiah actively envisions the impossible possibility of a new political order in which the marginalized will be centered.
Rather than passively waiting for the wicked to share their wealth, Isaiah actively envisions the impossible possibility of a new economic order in which the poor will have enough, and the rich will not have more than they need.
Rather than passively waiting for a new heaven and a new earth, Isaiah actively envisions the impossible possibility of a new ecological order in which the wolf will lie down with the lamb and humanity can co-exist with creation.
Isaiah actively envisions a new creation where enmity will be no more! Where the offspring of Eve will not crush the head of the Serpent, but rather, the toddler will dance on the cobra’s nest.
Can we envision such a future? Is such a future too far-fetched for us to see?
Isaiah knows it is impossible, but that does not stop him from imagining God moving in such a way that retributive justice will give way to the impossible possibility of restorative justice. Where violence and aggression will be replaced with playfulness and co-existence.
Is such penal reform too radical for us?
Isaiah imagines a future in which the criminal would not need to be locked away in prison, but God’s Spirit of rehabilitation would make it possible for the victim and the accused to live safely in the same community.
Where the lion will not need to be caged, but God’s Spirit of transformation would take away the predator’s taste for meat. A future in which the lion will eat straw like the Ox and prove themselves safe to live next to the lamb.
Surely this is prophetic hyperbole! Surely this vegetarian future is impossible? Does Isaiah really expect the Lion to give up their taste for meat? Could we ever give up our taste for meat?
As we are immersed in Isaiah’s active imagination, I wonder if we are ready for God to act and make it a reality? Are we ready to live into a future where a little child will lead us? Are we prepared to swim if knowledge of the Lord flooded the earth like the waters that cover the sea?
This advent season, as we wait for God to breathe, and the Spirit to move, and the shoot to grow from the stump, let us not wait passively. Like Isaiah may we actively envision and actively prepare for the impossible possibility of a new community, a new city, a new creation. Amen.
[1] Walter Brueggemann, Isaiah 1-39, 103.
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