IS 11:1-10
PS 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17
IS 11:1-10 PS 72:1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17 LK 10:21-24
“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch
from his shoots shall bear fruit.” –Isaiah 11:1
There
was a tree stump in the neighborhood where I grew up. Every day I’d ride past it
on my bicycle when I was out playing with friends. Based on the stump’s size, I’d
say it once was a towering oak tree that lived for many decades, providing
shade beneath it as well as loads of acorns for hungry squirrels.
I
knew none of that as a kid, of course. For me, the stump was a landmark that
I’d ride past.
I
don’t know if it’s there still, but it reminds me that life is always replete
with past remnants – ‘stumps’, if you will. The markers are everywhere. Our
bedroom dressers are markers from my deceased grandmother, who acquired them in
the 1940’s. Many of our Christmas decorations are hand-me-downs from past
relatives. Even our body features can remind others of relatives who came
before us. My posture and hairline is a sort of “stump-marker” that reminds my
grandmother of her long-dead father, who was born in 1901. The reminders/stumps
signify what isn’t there anymore, but also that there’s a particular history …
a lineage. Something continues onward. The connection remains.
This
passage in Isaiah is commonly known among Old Testament scholars as a prophetic
allusion to the Messiah to come, an event the Old Testament points toward.
Jesus, the shoot that bears fruit, will descend from the stump of Jesse, King
David’s father. It’s a lineage. This
is good news! The Messiah is coming! But … the people that Isaiah is
prophesying to don’t know Jesse; he’s long dead. And they themselves will be
long-dead when Christ arrives. So why is Isaiah sharing this to the immediate
audience?
Perhaps
it’s this: this prophecy insists to its immediate audience they are part of a
story that’s going somewhere. The Israelites are in exile in Babylon during
Isaiah’s time; his words remind them that the exile is not the end of the
story. It also confronts them with hopes and challenges. How to live in the
meantime? How to live with a hope that the fulfillment of which will surely
outlive them, but someday not their descendants?
I
suppose it’s a similar sort of hope my grandmother had when she gave us the
bedroom dressers near the end of her life. She knew what it meant for her to
pass those on to us – she knew she would soon have no need of them. It’s what
my mother hoped for when she diligently worked to raise me up in the Christian
faith – that fruit would be born that would outlive us both. It’s what I hope
for with my future descendants, that some of what I am and have will cooperate
with God’s plans for them, and that what I have to give toward that will
outlive me. I find hope in that reality, and challenge in the here and now. I
am a tree that will someday be a stump, but from that stump a shoot will bear
fruit sometime later. So it was with Christ, from the stump of Jesse.
Jim Roach is the Campus Minister for Reinert Hall.
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