A Child will Lead Them

Isaiah 11:1-10

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—3 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. 5 Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. 7 The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. 8 The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. 9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

Matthew 3:1-12

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 3 This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.’”

4 John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey. 5 People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan. 6 Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9 And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

11 “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

We are in the second week of Advent. Each week has a word associated with the overall theme. Last week was “peace.” In the middle of pain and suffering, we long for peace. We long to beat our swords into plowshares, our guns into garden tools. Next week we will look at “joy,” and I will explain why we have a pink candle then, before we turn to “love” on the final Sunday of Advent.

Today’s focus is on hope. Building upon last week’s message, where we discussed things like lament, today we try to find hope in this world.

Our first scripture for this morning comes to us from Isaiah 11. At this time, the Israelites find their selves in captivity, they are in exile. Uprooted from their homes, their friends, and it feels like even separated from their God. But in this despair, Isaiah provides an image of hope.

Just what image of hope do we find? Is it a rainbow on a cloudy day? A rose blooming after a cold winter? Or a child smiling after a long and difficult pregnancy? Nope. It is a tree stump.

I don’t know a lot about tree stumps, but I do know that they are pretty resilient. Anyone with a chainsaw can cut down a tree. There is an art to making sure those trees don’t fall on homes, cars, or people, but if you can operate a chainsaw, you can bring down a tree. But the stump is a different story. It can be very difficult to get rid of a stump. There are special grinders made to cut a stump down to the ground level. People try to burn stumps when they are old and dry. There are even home recipes involving Epsom salt that people mix together, drill holes in the stump, and pour the mixture into the holes to help remove the stump.

Like I said, stumps are resilient.

But here’s and interesting thing about tree stumps, particularly deciduous trees (not evergreens). When you cut down a tree and leave a stump, that stump can produce new growth. Utilizing the established roots, which spread deep into the soil, a new shoot can spring up and develop into a new tree.

This is the image that Isaiah offers the people of Israel. All that they know has been cut off, removed, and hauled away. But the story doesn’t end there, just as it didn’t start there. The story started when God called Abraham to establish a people. The story continued when God called Moses to lead that people group out of captivity in Egypt. Like a seemingly dead tree stump, the story has deep roots, living roots. And new life can spring forth from those roots as what has previously been established can provide the foundation and the nourishment for that which is yet to come.

Where do we find hope when all that we know has been cut off and removed? I think we can find hope in many places. Often we talk about looking to the future, and that is true. But we need to remember that we can also go to our roots. We can go back to the stories found in the Bible and see that God did not leave his people abandoned, exiled, or wandering in the wilderness forever. And even in that period of wandering, the scriptures teach us that they never wandered alone. God was always there with them, and they always had one another.

When we feel all has been cut off, we can draw from the roots of the church. We can think of the faith of our Anabaptist forebearers who were persecuted for their faith, some burnt at the stake, others drown in the river. While I never wish that upon anyone, I find strength and nourishment in the roots of the church. I’m not sure that I would have the faith that the martyrs had, but I can find inspiration from them today.

Parents, grandparents, even our contemporaries in the church today can be our roots, our nourishment, and our inspiration. But the image of the stump in Isaiah doesn’t just point to the past, it points to the future. That new growth on the old stump is the hope for the future.

There is an old saying, “The one who plants a tree, knowing he will never sit in its shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”

Perhaps the hope we have isn’t even found in something that we will enjoy here in this lifetime. We will circle back to this. But first, let’s address our New Testament passage. The second Sunday of Advent always includes John the Baptist. Dude is one of my favorite biblical characters. He doesn’t care what people think about his clothes. He eats whatever he wants. And the man speaks his mind. Granted, he loses his head over the last one, but I still respect a guy who is willing to die for what he knows is right.

The gospels connect John to the prophecy from Isaiah 40. John is the voice calling in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord. And John does this by calling the people to repentance. He says in verse 2, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

I say this every year for Advent 2, so this may not be new to you. But it is worth saying again. When I hear people say “repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” I usually don’t want to be that person’s friend. When they have professional signs, I really don’t even want to talk with them.

A couple weeks ago, as I walked from my car to the Georgetown campus, I hear a bit of a commotion. As I got closer, I could see that there were protestors standing at the main gate, right where I walk into the school. They were holding professionally-printed signs with messages that go beyond the words of John the Baptist. Though I never received confirmation, this looked like the Westboro Baptist Church, or at least something a lot like that group.

The picketers were surrounded by security guards and counter-protestors. One of my favorite forms of counter-protest was a student who lived across the street. He brought out an amp and speaker, and was playing the electric guitar cranked way up. He was playing, and playing well, songs by ZZ Top and ACDC. I did notice the irony when he played “Highway to Hell.”

This is what I envision when I hear people saying “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” I envision the Westboro Baptist Church standing on the corner, telling people that God hates them and they need to repent or burn. Perhaps there are some parallels to what John the Baptist was doing, but the message is different in the original language. Remember that the Greek word for repent, “metanoia,” simply means to turn. It means to realign your life.

Who needs to realign their lives? Yes, my fellow students do. And so do I. I think we all need to realign our lives. If we look further into this scripture, the Sadducees and the Pharisees come to John for baptism as well. It isn’t just the tax collectors and the prostitutes. The religious people who seem to have it all together need to be making adjustments along the way as well.

The first step toward hope is to repent. The first step toward hope is to turn yourself. It is like that old song goes, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” If we aren’t willing to realize that we ourselves are contributing to what is wrong with the world, and what is wrong with our lives, we will never make any progress.

(I have a story of a personal nature to share here, so I’m not going to publish the entire story online and we will edit out the audio before we link to it on our website. I’ll pick back up where I feel the anonymity of the family can be maintained.)

The father has gotten pretty upset about this and he told his wife, “I feel like everyone is teaming up on me and that nobody understands me.”

I think that should be a sign to this man. If everyone is against you and is siding with the others, maybe you should take note. But this person is looking at everyone else in his family and he thinks they need to change. They need to change their plans, they need to open their eyes, they need to realize how their decisions are going to affect the rest of the family.

John the Baptist doesn’t come on the scene and pronounce, “Everyone look at your neighbor and tell them what they are doing wrong.” No, he invites them to repent. He invites them to look at their own lives and turn.

But where are we to turn? If we just keep turning, we will end up spinning around until we get dizzy. This is not some random turn, it is a turn toward something. More specifically, it is a turn to someone.

When you see pictures of John the Baptist, he is almost always doing something with his hands. He doesn’t just tell us to turn, he points us toward the one to whom we should be turning. In verse 11, John says, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

John goes on to say that the one who is to come will separate the wheat from the chaff and burn up that chaff. And I am one who believes John is talking about Jesus separating the good and the bad within each of us. He will burn up that chaff, leaving only the good. It is a fire of purification, a refiner’s fire. And since we all need to repent, to turn, we all need to be refined as well.

I come back to my friend. I pray for a refiner’s fire in his life. I pray that God will burn that chaff from his heart, just as I pray God will continue to refine my own heart. But that will only happen if he makes the decision to turn. That doesn’t mean he is alone. No, there is one more image from the Isaiah passage that I want to lift out.

Isaiah describes his vision, beginning in verse 6. We often call this, “the Peaceable Kingdom.” Verse 6 says, “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

Sometimes it is the children among us that cause us to turn. How many people have held their first child and said, “I need to make a change in my life.” “I need to eat better, exercise, stop smoking. I need to be a better person because I am now in charge of this little child. I need to get back to church, I need to set an example for this child, my child.”

My prayer is that a child will lead my friend to repent as well.