+ Advent midweek 2 – December 11th, 2019 +
Isaiah 11:1-10
Beautiful Savior Lutheran
Milton, WA
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Of all the Christmas movies out there, A Charlie Brown Christmas, is my favorite. It’s a classic in many ways: delightful music, endearing characters, and of course, Linus’ beautiful recitation of the Christmas story from Luke 2. Most of all, though, I love it for its simplicity. For when Charlie Brown goes to pick out a Christmas tree, he ignores all the bright, shiny, glitzy, glamorous, tinsel-covered trees, and picks out a rather ordinary, simple, unassuming sapling. It’s not at all what Lucy expected, but it’s glorious and profound none the less.
This is exactly how we should see Advent and Christmas. In the simple, ordinary, unassuming, humble things. For is exactly the way our Lord works in Advent and Christmas: Jesus hides his great glory and power in lowliness and weakness. Jesus hides his majesty and holiness in his smallness and humility. A Virgin birth. A little town of Bethlehem. A lowly feeding trough for a bed. An infant.
This, however, is not the way we expect God to reveal himself – as a helpless baby, taking on the frailty of our mortal nature. And yet God does exactly that. When our Lord comes, he comes to us in humility, to save us.
So when the prophet Isaiah foretells Jesus’ birth, he reveals to Israel and to us that the Christ, the Messiah, God’s chosen One, comes not as a conquering King like Israel expected. Rather, as Isaiah says, when the Lord comes, he comes in humility to save. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
The Lord will come, declares Isaiah, only not as a towering Cedar of great height and strength and depth, but as a little sapling, smaller than even a Charlie Brown tree, a shoot growing from the stump of Jesse.
It’s no accident that Isaiah depicts Israel as a stump. Jesse’s stump serves as a reminder of Israel’s sin against YHWH. For even though YHWH was their perfect king and Israel was to live under his perfect rule and receive his perfect peace and rest in his perfect promises, Israel is anything but perfect. Israel rebels and rejects the Lord, followed other gods, and forgot about the Lord. Isaiah doesn’t pull any punches. David’s family tree, indeed the whole house of Israel is a stump. A dead and lifeless tree, no longer bearing good fruit. Israel is cut down in their sin. The axe is laid to the root. Jesse’s stump is a sign of death. Israel has been brought low. Humbled.
God’s word does the same for us too, revealing that we’re like a diseased tree, our limbs, branches, and fruit are all infected. It’s like a reverse of King Midas, everything we touch, all our thoughts, words, and deeds – spreads the dry-rot and decay of our sin. So God sends us Isaiah, as he did to Israel, to be like a Paul Bunyan, clearing our forests of pride, removing the logs from our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds in a great swathe of God’s Word. Laying us low, laying the axe to our roots, until we see that in ourselves we’re nothing more than a lifeless, dead stump.
And yet, Isaiah reveals that God does his best work when things are completely, totally, and absolutely lifeless and dead. The once barren wombs of Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth are filled with life. The once dead Lazarus is called forth from his tomb. From the dead stump of Jesse rises and sprouts a shoot. Jesus, dead in the tomb rose from the dead on the third day. Sinners like us, dead in trespasses, are raised to newness of life in Jesus who humbled himself to the point of death on the cross for you. For we are not saved by our humility, but by Jesus who humbled himself for you.
This is why Isaiah points to the stump of Jesse as the place where the Messiah, Jesus, will sprout forth from. Though Jesus is David’s son and David’s Lord, Isaiah doesn’t use the imagery of David at the height his reign: the greatness, power, and military might. No, Isaiah goes back to David’s humble beginnings. Back to the time when David and his family were simply a bunch of unknown shepherds. A sign of things to come in Jesus’ humble birth where humble shepherds are the first to see David’s Son and Lord in the flesh. When our Lord comes, he comes to us in humility, to save us.
Through Isaiah, God gives us a preview of Jesus’ death on the cross, where he will take something that is completely dead and use it to give life.
There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
Wisdom. Understanding. Counsel. Knowledge. Peace. Justice. Righteousness. These were not the weapons Israel expected the Messiah to be wielding when he came. They expected a sword and spear, not weapons of the Spirit.
And yet, this is exactly how God works time and time again, from Genesis to Revelation. God does the opposite of what we think or expect him to do. He reverses our every expectation. He’s not a tame God after all. But he is good. And in his goodness, he works a great reversal for Israel and for us.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord promised Israel would return from exile one day. He would always preserve a faithful remnant. Isaiah depicts Jesus’ coming, both in his birth and his second coming as a great reversal. A righteous branch would sprout from the stump of Jesse, a king from David’s line, yet greater than David. In Jesus, God pulls off his greatest surprise ending yet, a great reversal of cosmic proportions. Jesus is, in fact, the chief arborist, the greatest forester of all.
Jesus grafts us wild shoots into him, the true vine, that we might bear good fruit in faith toward him and fervent love for one another. Jesus is the shoot from the stump of Jesse, and the root of Jesse who saves us by the tree of his cross.
Jesus is made low to raise us up.
Jesus is made the least and the last to make us great and first in his kingdom.
Jesus is made poor to make us rich in his grace and mercy.
Jesus is born in a humble manger to give us a glorious, eternal home with him.
Jesus is made the sinner on the cross to make us holy and righteous.
Jesus came in humility to exalt us in glory this advent, and at his final advent as well.
In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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