Isaiah 11:1
Second Sunday in Advent
9 December 2007
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
“A Shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.”
As strange as that text sounds, that simple, short sentence is a prophetic message of the Gospel, a message proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God, a message that was necessary in Isaiah’s day and age as the Assyrian Empire was expanding and Israel was declining, a message that is just as necessary for us living in 21st Century Southern California.
“A Shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.” When we hear that sentence, we should all be shouting “Glory” and “Hallelujah” and “Amen!”
Think about the events of the last couple years.
A couple major hurricanes blew into town, almost wiping off the face of the map one major U.S. city and completely “ghost-towning” much of the Gulf coast of our country. That’s a stump that needs a shoot.
Just six weeks ago, more than 10 wildfires raged out of control all around us, destroying millions of acres of land and hundreds and hundreds of homes. That’s a stump that needs a shoot.
Hardly a day passes when we don’t get news of another ambush in Iraq, involving the death of yet another service person, knowing that in a few days we will see an image of a flag-draped casket being carried off an airplane. That’s a stump that needs a shoot.
Last Saturday – December 1 – was World AIDS Day. I know we didn’t mention it here last Sunday and, sadly, I am going to guess that omission was not unusual in most churches. That’s a stump that needs a shoot.
Did you ever believe you’d see the day when we’d be celebrating gasoline at $3.25 a gallon? For most of us that price is a bad inconvenience, but we know that gas at that price is making some people make difficult decisions like do I put gas in my car or order that prescription I need to maintain my health or do I put gas in my car or food on my table? That’s a stump that needs a shoot.
How many of us and how many of our neighbors walk around our neighborhoods at night or sit on our front porches? Most of us and most of our neighbors don’t mainly because of fear because we are all acutely aware of the sharp increase in violence in our own neighborhoods. The safety factor has disappeared. That’s a stump that needs a shoot.
“A Shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.” That Shoot’s name is “Jesus,” that name literally translated as “He Saves.”
Some 2,700 years ago, when Isaiah was writing his prophetic message, Jesus was needed to bring justice to an unjust world, to make the lion lie down with the lamb, to protect the infant as it played near the cobra nest,
to allow the cow to eat alongside the bear.
Today, 2,700 years after Isaiah, Jesus is still needed to bring peace when homes are destroyed and lives disrupted, to bring comfort when loved ones have been lost, to bring wisdom when difficult decisions needs to be made and to bring hope for the day when people don’t have to be afraid to be in their own homes.
Jesus does all that and so much more. Yet sometimes it seems Jesus is the biggest secret in the entire world. In times of crisis or tragedy, it sometimes seems people will turn to everyone and everything else but Jesus, He Whom Isaiah prophecies will be a “banner for all the peoples” and to Whom the “nations will rally.” That doesn’t seem to be happening today and we must ask “Why?”
Could it be – might I suggest – that we – the redeemed people of God – have become the new Pharisees and the new Saducees, that brood of vipers, the ones scolded by John the Baptist for not producing fruit in keeping with repentance [Matthew 3:1-11]. Do we sometimes simply get amused not by a man wearing camel’s hair and standing a the river bank but by the sideshow that we call “church?” Do we really understand and appreciate our needs and the needs of people around us? Do we really believe that Jesus can do everything Isaiah foretold and so much more?
The world needed Isaiah to bring a message of hope.
The world needed John the Baptist to prepare the way of the Lord.
The world needs you. The world needs me. No, they don’t need us, but they need what we have. The world needs Jesus. He is the Shoot that comes from the stump of Jesse. He is the glimmer of hope where otherwise there is just destruction and hopelessness.
This week, be an Isaiah and tell someone about the changed world that Jesus brings about.
This week, be a John the Baptist and prepare someone else for the coming of the Lord Jesus.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena