A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 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.
One of the great stories in the Bible is God’s selection of Abraham and Sarah’s descendants to be a light to the nations, carrying out the divine plan of bringing humanity back to a proper relationship with God, with each other, and with nature. To help them fulfill their calling, God gives them the Promised Land and vows that King David and his heirs shall have a perpetual kingdom. But while God remains faithful to the covenant, the Israelites do not. To bring them to their senses, God allows greater powers to conquer them and send their leaders into exile.
In Isaiah 10, the chapter just prior to our text, the prophet proclaims God’s mercy in allowing a purified and faithful remnant to return home. In Isaiah 11:1 Jesse is the father of David. The stump of Jesse is a poetic reference to the remnant, and the shoot from the stump is a descendant of David, a messiah (anointed one), who will restore Israel. In its entirety, Isaiah 11 paints a beautiful picture of the life of the age to come when the spirit of the Lord rests on the Messiah, while all of God’s creatures live in peace and justice and harmony.
We read these scriptures in the Advent season because as Christians we believe that the Messiah prophesied by Isaiah is the child born in a humble manger in Bethlehem. How strange and wonderful are the works of the Lord who begins the plan for salvation with a childless couple, seemingly too old to have children, and, fulfills it, in the words of C.S. Lewis, in a stable that had something inside it that was bigger than the whole world!
Saint Paul picks up on these themes in the 8th chapter of his letter to the Romans when he envisions all creation groaning in labor pains as it awaits its redemption and the Spirit helping us in our weakness, interceding for us with sighs too deep for words. In the present age it’s easy to be cynical about such visions and think the way to get ahead is by being self-centered and ruthless. But everywhere there are saints that carry with them the spirit of the Christ child.
One of my dear colleagues grew up poor in a small Southern town. She has spent her career helping struggling students by endowing a needs-based scholarship, raising money to buy dozens of laptops for those who can’t afford them, helping several hundred students pay their tuition or find a place to live, and even giving her car to a student who was homeless before she came into his life. She’s also a Stage 4 cancer survivor who was told twenty years ago she had less than six months to live. Ever since, she’s tried to do as much for others as she can for as long as she can.
There are plenty of people like her that pray for and act as though we are already living under the just king of Isaiah’s vision. Some are in our church. May we pray that all of us be filled with God’s Spirit as we celebrate the birth of the Messiah (the Christ) this Advent season!
Written by Tom Scott, HPC’s “Bible University” teacher
“What am I passionate about at Heritage? I love our education program and the opportunity to teach an adult Sunday school class for the last 23 years. I love the fact that Presbyterians are so open to new perspectives, to metaphorical and poetic language, and to studying biblical texts in historic context.”
