When Resurrection Comes

Isaiah 11:1-10                                                                   December 5, 2004

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 power,

the Spirit of knowledge and of the 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 hole of the cobra,

and the young child put his hand into the viper's nest.

9 They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be full of 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 place of rest will be glorious.

CCI: When Resurrection follows Death, everything is made new.

INTRO: Our society today needs hope. We are embroiled in a war that seems to be getting deeper. According to last weeks paper, alcohol is being abused in Bay City at levels not equaled anywhere in the state. A recent study indicates that by the time they are 21, 1 in 3 girls will have been pregnant at least once. Divorce is an epidemic that is crushing families. Unemployment remains at destructive levels throughout our state. The Christian church in America is now known to many by our division, judgement, prejudice and just plain meanness. And we are the ones who have been given the message of hope.

         Yet, Advent, is a season of hope, it is the hope that light will shine again into the darkness; it is the hope that life will again spring from the frozen ground; it is hope of peace in the midst of turmoil, hope of courage in the middle of fear, hope of justice in the face of judgement, and hope of life when death seems to be at the door. It is the hope that God’s reign will be established and His kingdom will overcome. It is the hope of salvation.

         The need for hope is not new to us today. Hope is what was what God’s people were longing for in Isaiah’s day as well. As Isaiah preached and wrote, the Northern Kingdom of Israel was under constant attack by the super power of the day, Assyria. Slowly the sovereignty of the nation was being eroded eventually the North collapsed and the people were sent into exile. The South did not know what to do. To try to stave off the same fate, the Kings of Jerusalem started making treaties with the nations around her. Some of the people began to worship the gods of the Assyrians because the Assyrians were winning. The prophets looked for ways of being popular with the people and kings. When the time for harvest arrived, the enemy would destroy the fields. There were frequent raids into the country and the kings could little to stop it. Their future seemed hopeless. With the fall of the North, the Southern kingdom did not know what to do. Judah had always felt like the smaller brother, and if the North had not been able to endure, surely their future was hopeless.

         Yet God speaks a word of hope, though things look bleak, there is salvation coming. Even though only a small remnant will remain, God will save his people.

Listen again to the promise of salvation, this is summarized from what we read earlier:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him- He will judge with righteousness. The wolf will live with the lamb, and a little child will lead them. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

         This is the vision of the peaceable kingdom. Lions with lambs, children with snakes, leopards with goats, calves with bears, all living together in harmony. It is a picture of all of creation living together in harmony. It is a picture of enemies dwelling in peace. It is a picture of a new creation. It is a picture of the salvation. This is the salvation that Isaiah longed for.

         Today we have personalized salvation so much, that the vision of the kingdom of peace is not even a part of us. Yes, salvation is from sins and for heaven, but that is only part of the picture. The salvation that is described here is a new creation. When the shoot from the stump of Jesse appears, salvation will come and things will never again be the same. Jesse was King David’s father, his line was the royal line through which God had established his king. It is from Jesse’s line that the new age would find it’s birth.

         But there is a catch. The shoot will spring from the stump of Jesse. What is a stump? It is what is left after a tree has been cut down. It is the dead stalk of the tree. I remember as a teenager living in a house that had dozens of trees in the yard. We needed to thin them out, so after we had gone wild with a chainsaw, we had stumps all over the yard. They were dead. We would drill holes in the stumps and then soak them with kerosene and let them smoke and burn for days before pulling them out. The stumps were good for nothing. They were the dead remains.

         So that is what was left of Jesse’s line. The line was dead, it had been cut off. And that was the condition for salvation and new life. Isaiah’s vision was the vision of a resurrected world. But what the are conditions for resurrection, clearly before anthing can rise from death, there must be death. And we don’t like that idea. None of us want to die. We hang on to life with every bit of energy we have. Families will spend thousands of dollars to care for a dying pet. Medical science is constantly trying to push back the boundary of death. Extraordinary means are used to keep patients alive just to avoid surrendering to death.

         But it is not only human life, it is also human relationships that we strive to keep alive. Businesses keep alive practices that are no longer effective because it is the way things are done. Churches continue to try to force activities long after their effectiveness has passed, because we do not want to surrender. Death in any forum is seen as a failure, it is the enemy, it is to be avoided at all cost. Whether it is ministries in churches, or relationships, or human life, we battle death. We cling to the idea that we can reverse death and that we can bring about new life.

         But resurrection only comes after death. For the new to come, the old must go. In 1980 after Mt Saint Helen erupted, It was assumed that all life would be gone from the region for decades. However, in the months following the eruption, naturalists began surveys of the area. One day, while doing a normal survey, one man found a bright patch of flowers. Upon further study, he realized that the flowers formed the outline of an elk. Apparently, when the mountain exploded, the elk died and burned on that spot, and through the nutrients that leeched from the remains, the wildflowers were given the of life. You see, for the peaceable kingdom to flourish, the kingdom of power and violence must come to an end. For new life to enter a relationship, the life of deceit and hidden agendas must die. For us to experience the blessings of interdependence, we must die to the belief that we can be independent. For us to rejoice in God’s all sufficiency, we must die to our self sufficiency. And for us to share in the new life of salvation, we must die to the old life.

         This is not comfortable to think about. We are taught all our lives to fight death. But what are the options? We can continue to deceive ourselves into believing that everything will be OK if we just work harder, but that is a dead end. We can continue to hide behind masks that our relationships are great, but that only leads to despair. The only sensible solution is to accept the possibility of resurrection. There will be a new shoot, there will be a recreation, each day is new and full of possibility. That is the message of Advent, there is hope.

         While the new creation only arrives when the old creation passes away, and new life, only comes when we realize we are dead in our sins there is a new creation and there is new life.

         In a few minutes we will celebrate the life and death and resurrection of Jesus as we symbolically gather around the Lord’s table. The invitation to the table is open to all who have died to themselves and accepted the new life Jesus offers. If you are still clinging to the idea that you can cause the stump to sprout by your own efforts, it is time to admit that it is hopeless. Life comes through death, the death of Jesus. Stop fighting today and admit that you need new life.