Monday in the Fourth Week of Advent

My favorite tree in the front yard of my childhood home was a redbud tree. My guess is that the tree had been planted as a sapling shortly after the construction of the house in the early 1950's. My family moved into the house in the mid-1960's and by the mid-1970's the tree had grown to a significant size. I looked forward to those glorious pink/violet buds as a harbinger of the Virginia springtime. First the white jonquils, then the bright yellow forsythia, then the redbuds...followed closely by the dogwoods and azaleas. 

Somewhere around the time I went to college, the redbud tree contracted a blight, which killed off half of its branches. My dad trimmed the dead branches away and began a two year process of attempting to save the tree. Finally, it became obvious that his best efforts would not be enough and late one fall, he cut the remaining branches and some of the trunk, leaving about a three foot high stump in the ground. Dad's plan was to allow the stump to finish dying over the winter, so that final disposition would be easier the following spring. 

But a funny thing happened on the way to certain death. The next spring, before my dad could get around to finishing the job he had started the previous fall, the entire top half of the stump was covered in redbud blossoms. While not as glorious as before, the flowers were so beautiful, my dad simply decided to let things be to "see what would happen". By the end of the summer several new branches had extended two or three feet out from the old stump. The next year, the redbud blossoms were back -- still not to the tree's former glory, but better than the first year of its new birth. By the time my parents sold their house in the mid-1980's, the new branches had spread to such an extent that, from a distance, it was difficult to determine if they were "new growth" or if they had been there all along. 

In today's reading from Isaiah, the Daily Office lectionary takes us back to the first section of the book penned by Isaiah of Jerusalem. As we have read Isaiah's oracles over the past few weeks, he is clear that the axe of God's righteousness is going to fall, and when the chopping is done, all that will remain of Kingdom of David, the son of Jesse, would be likened to a stump. The stump of the kingdom would be an icon to the Covenant People's breach of the Covenant. The stump would stand as a testimony to the fruit of faithlessness. The stump would silently scream of the perils of human arrogance in taunting Divine Holiness. 

But Isaiah of Jerusalem saw something else -- he saw that the stump of Jesse would not be the end of the story of this covenant-making, covenant-keeping God! He writes, "There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 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 fear of the Lord...." (Isaiah 11:1,2) This "shoot from Jesse" will be a sign of a new age of God's gracious favor -- a time when, "the wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them..." (Isaiah 11:6)

Isaiah sees, through the eyes of faith, a new world waiting to be born. Isaiah writes confidently of God's vision for the creation -- a vision in which, life will have the last word over death; righteousness will overwhelm injustice; peace will win the battle with war.  "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." (Isaiah 11:9) Isaiah of Jerusalem writes of a time he will not witness with his own eyes, but through faith, he sees that day with a clarity that eludes us. 

We ask, "Who was/is the 'shoot from the stump of Jesse'?" Is this phrase a figure of speech for the people of Israel as a whole? Was it a description of a king in the lineage of David who would literally reconstitute the Kingdom of David in all its former glory? Scholars disagree. The Church has claimed this beautiful poem of God's faithfulness to God's promises, with its emphasis on social justice and covenantal righteousness, as indicative of the ministry of Jesus. 

The task of this poem, though, is not to provide answers to all the questions we may have of God. The poem is not an apologetic to address all the concerns we may voice about "God's ways". This poem isn't about explaining anything. Rather, this poem is an exuberant psalm to God's faithful righteousness and righteous faithfulness. This poem is meant to evoke in the reader a hope that can endure even in the midst of debilitating devastation. This poem reminds us that even the stubborn stump of human rebellion and unrepentant recalcitrance is no match for God's tenacious, prodigal, life-giving love.