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“A Child Named Branch and Shoot” Sunday, December 6, 2009
David Schneider, Interim Pastor |
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Isaiah 9:18-20 & 10:15-19; 11:1-9 12/13/09 I have known children named branch and river, and I baptized a baby named Forrest. Now I have a young friend named Skye! This is a prophecy about another child to be named branch or shoot. "Few texts in all of biblical literature are better known and loved than this one..." It is magnificent poetry, but it is not a poem. Again, it is not a typical prophetic speech. There is no direct address to an audience; God does not speak; it is in the third person. It is a prophecy that was never fulfilled. Isaiah had great hopes, he believed that a king would come out of David’s family tree and personify God’s promise of a justice and righteousness for Jerusalem, a lasting salvation for the whole world. Isaiah’s dream was never fulfilled. He was sadly disappointed in the shortcomings of the new king Hezekiah, and then there was Josiah after him. Finally there came Manasseh, who was the worst king ever! A powerful allusion: all that was left is a lifeless stump. We have to go back and bridge the gap between the promise of Immanu El and the Wonderful Counselor, Prince of Peace in chapters 7-9, and look at the next prophecy. Once again Isaiah paints a very clear, graphic picture. In our second lesson (chapters 9-10) after the promise of the Prince of Peace, God allows wickedness to burn like a fire, so that it consumes the whole forest, from the briars and thorns up to the tall stately sycamores. "The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down." Isaiah’s choice of words is deliberate: remnant, child. This imagery includes Isaiah’s holy vineyard that belongs to the Lord himself in chapter 5. God says, "My beloved" took great care of my vineyard, but it yielded wild grapes; it was devoured, trampled, with briars and thorns choking out the grapevines. The reference is clear: the men of Israel and Judah, instead of looking for justice saw bloodshed; instead of establishing righteousness, a cry of desolation and death (5:7). light was traded for darkness, the sweet for what is bitter. So Assyria was wielded like an ax, a lumberjack’s saw (10:15) Yahweh will walk into the devastation that remains, God will go to that stump and choose one tiny root, and from the root God with his spirit, his wind, will breath life into the tiny root. Yaheweh shall cause a new shoot to grow, which shall be the hope of a new forest, a new vineyard 1. Isaiah promised this was to be a child named Branch or Shoot, "and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him," a king from David’s own lineage. He will uphold that ancient promise in 2 Samuel 7, a king who will rule in justice and righteousness. 2. David who wanted to build Yahweh a house, but that also was not to be. Even so, God promised to raise up David’s offspring afterhim, to establish David’s house and kingdom forever, a. but sometimes chastening the king with the rod and stripes. b. We know what became of that promise. It was forfeited. [PAUSE] II. The oracle here in chapter 11, this international vision of peace on earth is given to us in two parts by this great prophet. A. 1. Therefore, both synagogue and church still look to this passage for fulfillment of God’s promise. 2. In this royal oracle, the first part has to do with the Spirit of God who will enter the Anointed One. It describes his charismatic nature and the international political, military regime of lasting peace. 3. It ushers in the second part of the oracle set on God’s holy mountain, and what life will be likethere in "the peaceable kingdom." 3. [On Christmas Eve we will take up this second part.] B. This allusion about the forest and forest fire, the stump, and reforestation, is an exciting image for me.1. In June of 1981, I was in the Cascade Mountains in Washington. It was one year after the 2-4 minute Mt. St. Helen’s eruption triggered by an earthquake on May 18, 1980, northwest of Portland where my sister lives. I was able to drive within 3 miles of the still live, smoking crater on a one-way dirt road. I will never forget what it was like. Every valley and mountain top around me had been blasted by a non-human deadly force, with black ashes, the shriveled, charred remains of large tree trunks. It reminded me of a boy’s hair in 1960 pasted down with Butch Wax. Deathly quiet, not even the sound of a bug or fly. Not one animal. I saw what was left of one automobile. The marker informed me of the family name, and a year ago it had 5 people in it. They simply disintegrated. I was completely overwhelmed by the power of what could happen in God’s creation, and I wondered how a nuclear blast would compare. The worst volcanic disaster in our nation’s history: 250 homes destroyed, 185 miles of highway, and 57 people died. How many animals perished only God knows. My sister and her husband walked out of their front door in Lake Oswego that Sunday morning to go to church. Had they looked up, they would have seen the eruption or explosion. But they did not. Had it been on the southwest side instead of the east side, the city of Portland and Vancouver would have been wiped out–in the neighborhood of a million people. 2. On the mountain slopes I saw tiny green signs of new life poking their heads out from the ash and debris. A resurrection, a shoot or branch from the stump of Jesse! a. I knew that the ashes left by volcanos are considered a good fertilizer and an aphrodisiac to organic growth. [PAUSE] 3. James echoes some of Isaiah’s talk when he says the tongue and the human lie is like a deadly forest fire that spreads unchecked and uncontrolled (James 3:1-12). (page 2) a. " 4. Another allusion: Christmas is the time of year when the tree gets trimmed, and so does the budget. (page 2) a. Mission gets cut. In our church we restored the mission dollars, but what about food for Christmas boxes? III. What a majestic picture, a Christmas panorama of this peaceful ruler and his reign in 5 verses. A. 1. " Since God had foreseen something greater for us," You and I therefore today are "looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith...who endured the cross..and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."2. You have heard Hans Christian Anderson’s story of "The Fir Tree," and how it longed to be cut down to be a great mast on a ship, but it ended up felled by a woodman’s ax and destined to be only a little Christmas tree. Its glory lasted for a brief period, then it was thrown out and burned in a blaze, but the tree consoled itself that its happiest day was being in a home on Christmas Day.3. Have you heard the other story of "The Fir Tree?" The lonely little pine grew in the forest many years and yearned to grow tall. Years later when it was great and destined to be king of the forest, it was cut down and rudely stripped of its branches, ferried down a river with many logs, loaded on a ship, where it was taken to a market across the sea. How sad and unhappy was this fir tree yearning for what might have been. One day it was bought by some soldiers, pounded and nailed and rudely thrust in the ground. It was to be the Cross of criminal, but yet a tree upon whom the whole salvation of humanity was accomplished. Ironic, it was party to the greatest event in history. 4. In Isaiah’s version, it was to be "the light of Israel as a fire" which and "his Holy One a flame," which would bring this about, not through a crucifixion and a rising from the dead. B. The nature of this great One in Isaiah 11 whom everyone awaits, even the predatory world, will be an Advent child just weaned from his mother’s breast. He is to be shaped by "the spirit of the Lord," according to the promise to David centuries ago. A charismatic and exciting, breath-taking child in whom God’s Spirit will endow with 3 pairs of gifts. 1. Each of these complimentary pairs is introduced by the same descriptive language: a. "the spirit of wisdom and understanding," b. "the spirit of counsel and might," c. "the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD." 2. The first pair of gifts, wisdom and understanding, often appear together in the Old Testament. a.These two embody a practical, every day use and administration; b. for it he cannot judge by what he sees and hears, how then shall he rule? c. But this is a deeper seeing and a deeper hearing which ensuresfair treatment and maybe a little more for the meek, the lowly, and the unprotected. 3. The second pair–counsel and might– imply a just and humane political and military world. a. But even in God’s kingdom on earth, there will still be need for a rod of iron and for stripes to maintain his rule. 4. The third pair, "the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD," are the gifted ruler’s piety and faith a. He knows God, he fears or reverences God absolutely. 5. These 6 gifts of the Holy Spirit, then, make up the character of the Messiah from the stump of Jesse, this new young offset. which will give birth to the great king who will rule with justice for all and righteousness in the gates of the city. a. It will spread like wildfire to every nation on earth! b. So that the prophecy of chapter 9 is fulfilled someday in God’s new age, through this c. " C. It will be like a great new pristine forest in God’s second Eden.1. Sycamores that were cut down in chapter 9:10 will be replaced with majestic cedars. Instead of briars and thorns will grow a beloved vineyard. 2. Look again, if you have not seen them all: the trees of Advent and Christmas, as signs of God’s justice and righteousness: a. the Angel tree, b. the mitten tree, c. the trees in the park across from our church decorated by the children, d. the bird trees so popular in the Eastern US, on which bread, and suet, and popcorn are hung e. Have you heard of the towel tree? f. or the helping hands tree for the elderly? g. and of course, the green project, "plant a tree" h. In Ft Worth there is a "Homeless Tree" along Interstate 30! 3. When God comes in person, Psalm 96 proclaims:
"let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall (the juniper, the everygreen) and all the trees of the woods sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes, for he comes to judge the world with righteousness
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