Scripture Introduction
In a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, Calvin asks his dad why the moon is so big tonight. He takes out a quarter and says, “Its smaller than a quarter.”
Judging the size of far away objects can be difficult. For example, the sun is really big, about 900,000 miles in diameter. Yet a tiny dot in the sky, the star Betelgeuse, astronomers tell me is actually 600,000,000 miles in diameter (75,000 times larger than the earth) and it emits 10,000 times as much energy as the sun! It does not look so.
The sizes are not as large, but the distances can confuse us when we read the Old Testament, especially prophecy. Some events future to the author would occur soon. Isaiah predicts the destruction of Judah and a forced exile which would happen only a few years after he spoke. But he also describes a Messiah who came 700 years after the promise. Still other things Isaiah said remain future—even now, almost 3000 years since he preached. The distance to fulfillments can deceive us.
Additionally, we now know who is the Messiah. We may, however, in our rush to get to Jesus, miss the significance of the text as it applied in Isaiah’s day. I want us to benefit from both. What response did Isaiah hope for from his sermon? And, what response should we have now that we know the “answer”? Let’s think about that together as I read Isaiah’s prophecy. [Read Isaiah 11. Pray.]
Introduction
“Promises, promises,”—is kind of a slogan, a way of saying that people cannot be trusted to keep their word. Many of us remember Mr. Bush, senior, and his famous promise: “Read my lips—no new taxes.” Of course, under the pressure of cooperation and compromise, he signed into law a tax increase and he was forever castigated as a man whose lips lied. Failure to keep promises is endemic in humanity—widespread, common, the way we work.
We should consider promises, especially during advent, because this season is, essentially, about God’s promises. “Is God like us, or does he keep his word? Can we build our lives on what he says?” We really cannot read the Bible without answering those questions because it is filled with promises.
Hebrews 13.5: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Isaiah 41.10: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
Matthew 11.28: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
1John 1.9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
And maybe the best known promise: John 3.16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Likewise, Isaiah 11 is mostly promises, some complete, some remain. By seeing how God kept his word by providing the Messiah, our hearts will be stirred to a deeper confidence, and therefore, a more solid and active faith.
1. Because Sin Destroys Lives, We Must Trust in a Supernatural Work (Isaiah 11.1)
Three words in that verse need special explanation: stump, shoot and Jesse.
1.1. What Is The Stump?
A few years before Isaiah wrote, Israel and Syria attacked Judah. They intended to force Judah to join them against the evil Assyrian empire. But the king of Judah, Ahaz, was afraid of Assyria. He said, “Assyria is like the mighty cedars of Lebanon with which they have built their homes and temples. No tree is greater than the giant cedars, and no nation can stand against Assyria.”
But Isaiah came to Ahaz and said, “Do not worry about Israel’s army, God will deliver.”
Isaiah 7.1-4,7: In the days of Ahaz the son of Jotham, son of Uzziah, king of Judah, Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it, but could not yet mount an attack against it. 2 When the house of David was told, “Syria is in league with Ephraim,” the heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind. 3 And the LORD said to Isaiah, “Go out to meet Ahaz, you and Shear-jashub your son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Washer’s Field. 4 And say to him, ‘Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands, at the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria and the son of Remaliah…. 7 Thus says the Lord GOD: “‘It shall not stand, and it shall not come to pass.”’”
But Ahaz did not trust God or Isaiah. Instead, seeing the attacking armies, he called on Assyria for help. And with Assyria’s aid, Judah defeated Israel.
But their actions offended God, who did not want his people entering an unholy alliance with pagan nations, especially when he had already promised deliverance. So God said to Ahaz and Judah, (paraphrase) “You see the nation of Assyria like the mighty cedars of Lebanon. Well, those mighty cedars will come and clear cut your forest. They will be the only trees standing, since you so value their mighty trees. You will fall before their power—you will be nothing but a stump.”
But God is not done. He has one more message for Judah: “After this, I will personally cut down those trees you fear. Then you will no longer claim the mighty cedars of Lebanon as the supreme power.”
Isaiah 10.15-19: Shall the axe boast over him who hews with it, or the saw magnify itself against him who wields it? As if a rod should wield him who lifts it, or as if a staff should lift him who is not wood! Therefore the Lord GOD of hosts will send wasting sickness among his stout warriors, and under his glory a burning will be kindled, like the burning of fire. The light of Israel will become a fire, and his Holy One a flame, and it will burn and devour his thorns and briers in one day. The glory of his forest and of his fruitful land the LORD will destroy, both soul and body, and it will be as when a sick man wastes away. The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down.
Isaiah 10.33-34: Behold, the Lord GOD of hosts will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the great in height will be hewn down, and the lofty will be brought low. 34 He will cut down the thickets of the forest with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by the Majestic One.
So only stumps remain. God’s people and God’s enemies, all compared to great trees, are cut down. Lest we despair, however, a shoot springs up.
1.2. What About the Shoot?
This past summer we created our garden plot. We picked the best place and tilled the land. But a few trees shaded the area and threatened our crop. So, we cut them down.
Guess what happened? Shoots appeared! The vast network of roots connected to the stump do not give up easily. They are busy growing a new tree.
Since Judah and Israel said Assyria was mighty like the cedar, God simply continues that illustration when telling Israel what he will do: “Though my people are cut down and appear dead, I will bring life, a shoot from the stump. But not just any stump, from a particular one: Jesse.
1.3. Why Jesse?
Long before, God promised that Jesse’s offspring would save his people. 1Samuel 16.1: The LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul, since I have rejected him from being king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go. I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.”
David was that king, the best Israel had ever had. He was a man after God’s own heart, godly, a great leader. Yet he failed, as all men must.
So God’s people looked back on the Samuel prophecy and waited for another son of Jesse, a future descendant of David, as the key to revival. Isaiah reminds them that even though they are cut down for their rebellion, even though they are exiled for their sins, God keeps his promises. Jesse’s son will rise from the ruin and revive God’s people.
That is the background. How were the people to hear this prophecy? What were they to do?
They were to trust God to provide (supernaturally) a king like David. They were to quit relying on man-made religion and to wait on the Lord. Eventually, of course, Jesus is born. The descendent of Jesse, a fresh and living shoot from the dead stump of Judah, the one so alive that he is life itself.
I see two applications for us. First, we must see Jesus as the answer to the promise. Israel and Judah had to trust God to provide (because it was future to them); we must trust that he has provided (it is past to us). When Isaiah calls the Old Testament church to look for a day when the shoot will come from the stump, he is also showing us that God always keeps his promises. We can believe God’s word because passages like this show he is faithful.
There is a second application: we must, like the Old Testament church, resist placing faith in our own man-made religions. I see two ways we might do so.
One way is to deny the supernatural. The Jewish people and many liberal denominations take that path. Religion becomes the way we do good, the path to self-improvement, the process of getting in touch with the inner me. There is little of God in it, because God either does not exist or is too far away. We do the same when we leave off prayer, when we try to labor in our own strength, when we imagine that we please God because our worship services are done right.
For our church, however, maybe the greater risk is using the supernatural as an excuse for doing nothing. We may say or think something like: “We don’t need aggressive evangelism, because God will bring whom he wants to church. We need not strive for excellence in everything we do, because doing so would overrule God’s sovereignty. We should not provide mercy ministry out of our building and into the neighborhood, because God will take care of the people.”
We are in danger of denying our responsibility to live as believers in the shoot of Jesse when we refuse to live out our faith in the light of the world.
There is one other key application I would like for us to consider—this shoot is new growth. Israel was a backward looking people, always wanting things the way they had been done before. So when God brought something new (in his son, the shoot, whose birth we prepare to celebrate) they did not recognize him. We read Isaiah 11.1 and say, “Jesus—how could you miss him? It is as obvious as the door in front of me.”
But when we read the gospels, we realize that the Jewish people only looked backward in their interactions with Jesus. They said to him, “You cannot be the Messiah; God has never done it that way.” But this shoot is clearly a new work!
And I would suggest that God is ready to begin a new work in our midst. I think one day soon we will quit saying, “We’ve never done it that way before.” It may be true, but since God is living and active in our church, then we should be able to say, “We are doing new things every year!” Yes, it will involve change, but we can trust God to lead and direct and fulfill his promises in his work through our church. A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse.
Sin destroys lives—this is a key message in the Old Testament—death, exile, destruction, misery beyond our imagination was thrust on these people. So that they came to the end of themselves and trusted in a supernatural, new work. Just like in Ephesians 2: we were dead in our trespasses and sins…. But God, made life.
2. Because Sin Confuses Thinking We Must Trust in a Spiritual Savior (Isaiah 11.2-3a)
What could be more discouraging than to be told you are not smart? Yet sin makes us stupid, doesn’t it? It is more than just making mistakes—sin leads us to destroy ourselves and our loved ones. So God promises a Messiah especially anointed with the Spirit, a Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fear, might. Everything we lack; every gift we need. How was the Old Testament church to respond?
First, they were to see their own failures in the promise of a Messiah very different than they had been. We have been unwise, confused, weak and foolish. Our trouble is the result of our own rebellion. What a humbling sermon this savior preaches.
Second, they were to desire a Savior full of the Spirit and to praise God for the promise of his arrival. God sees our every lack and makes every provision.
Third, they were to seek conformity to this standard. Just as the Messiah was full of the Spirit, so they were to ask God for a spiritual life. They were to seek the Wisdom of the Spirit, the Life of the Spirit, the counsel of the Spirit.
The same three are true for us.
First, confess your sins to the Lord. Admit that sin makes a fool of you and that you need a Spiritual Savior.
Second, worship God for his Son Jesus. The Messiah, perfect in every way, has come.
Third, follow him faithfully. Let us ask for more of the Spirit; let us humble ourselves under his mighty hand; let us seek his grace to be like him.
3. Because Sin Twists Justice, We Must Trust in a Godly King (Isaiah 11.3b-5)
Social justice, Care for the Downtrodden, Soup Kitchens. Even the words sound like something Episcopalians and other liberals do. Well, they and Jesus.
Surely obeying this King means more than simply waiting on him to return and make things right? Surely it means more than comfortable Christians listening to Biblical sermons? Over the last several months, I have been trying to solve billing disputes with Verizon and Sprint. The misery has made me realize just how unfair and unrighteous is the systems we have. I have many resources at my disposal for dealing with faceless corporate monsters, dizzying arrays of computer programs and Pakistani call centers that either do not care about the truth or cannot understand it. What about the poor, the less educated, those who lack the free time for hundreds of hours of protests and complaints?
Yes, we wait on a messiah who sets all evil right. But in the meantime, we are his people. And his people must labor for righteousness for the poor, equity for the meek, and justice for all, or will we cede all of that work to the democratic party and to bigger government? To do less denies the Lord who bought us.
4. Conclusion
Our Daily Bread had an insightful devotional this week: “Let us at all costs avoid the temptation to make our Christmas worship a withdrawal from the stress and sorrow of life into a realm of unreal beauty. It was into the real world that Christ came, into the city where there was no room for Him, and into a country where Herod, the murderer of innocents, was king.
“He comes to us, not to shield us from the harshness of the world but to give us the courage and strength to bear it; not to snatch us away by some miracle from the conflict of life, but to give us peace—His peace—in our hearts, by which we may be calmly steadfast while the conflict rages, and be able to bring to the torn world the healing that is peace.
“When Mary and Joseph presented the infant Jesus to the Lord, Simeon said to them: ‘Behold, this Child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign which will be spoken against (yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed’ (Luke 2.34-35). Christmas is not a retreat from reality but an advance into it alongside the Prince of Peace.” David C. McCasland.
Let us, this advent, follow the Prince of Peace into the real world of sin and sorrow, taking his joy to lost and needy people.
