+There are so many images that come to mind while hearing today’s readings:
Wolves and lambs lounging in a peaceful co-existence, leopards and lions playing, a baby crawling safely within the reach of the snake.
Gentiles being welcomed into Judaism through the cleansing act of baptism—no 30 foot walls being erected to keep the Palestinians out of Israel present here--the images are almost unbelievable!
And then we have wild and wooly John the Baptist flying INTO A RAGE at the Pharisees who’ve come to gawk at his baptizing act in the River Jordan. There he is, all smelly and wrapped in camel hair, his own hair and beard a rat’s nest of a mess, blasting his message to all within ear shot, a touch of crazed ramblings infused with a wisdom that cannot be denied.
And one of my favorite images of all—that earnest little blade of grass shooting up from the stump of a tree: a branch from the tree of Jesse.
Have you ever felt like a stump….a mere fragment of your former self? A little dried up and worn down, feeling as if life has cut you off at your knees?
“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse…” Who could imagine anything growing as they sat on the stump of utter despair? I’ve sat there myself, perhaps you have, too. You may be there now -- at that place where hope is cut off, where loss and sadness have deadened your heart.
God’s Advent word comes to sit with us. This word will not ask us to get up and dance. It doesn't come in a blaze of glory, it isn't delivered on a chariot of fire. It comes to where we are and it comes to us how we are...happy and hopeful, or sad and despairing, regardless, it meets us where we are.
Isaiah's words have come to us today—hopeful words creating a vision that is surprising in it’s simplicity and honesty. Nothing hyperbolic and lofty here. The nation would never rise again. The shoot would not become a mighty cedar. No, the shoot to come will not be the expected. It will be different. It will be surprising… it will be a child!
From the 53rd chapter of Isaiah we read:
For he grew up before them like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
Yes, a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse… fragile yet tenacious and stubborn. It will grow like a plant out of dry ground. It will push back the stone from the rock-hard tomb.
It will grow in the heart of those cut off by unbearable sorrow until one morning they can look up again. It will grow in the hearts of people told over and over that they are nothing. Nobody. People who are hated, despised and left out. In the depths of that sorrow, in the grip of that hate, the plant will grow. It will break through the places where darkness dwells, where hope loses it's way, where loneliness spreads. The shoot will grow to sing shouts of Hosanna and Glory to God in the highest.
What if we believe this fragile sign is God’s beginning? Perhaps then we will tend the seedling in our hearts, the place where faith longs to break through the hardness of our disbelief. Do not wait for the tree to be full grown. God comes to us in this Advent time and invites us to move beyond counting the rings of the past. We may still want to sit on the stump for a while, and God will sit with us. But God will also keep nudging us: “Look! Look -- there on the stump. Do you see that green shoot growing?”
O come, green shoot of Jesse, free
Your people from despair and apathy;
Forge justice for the poor and the meek,
Grant safety for the young ones and the weak.
Rejoice, rejoice! Take heart and do not fear,
God’s chosen one, Immanuel, draws near.
Getting ready, preparing our hearts for the coming of The Lord requires a willingness to open our hearts and receive the Love of God, wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a straw lined crib.
In closing, Listen to this, a meditation written for Advent, let it wash over you, may it open a spot in your heart:
A miracle is brewing.
Can you
feel it,
see it,
touch it.?
It will transport us…back to a time when all was possible…forward to a time when all is possible.
The miracle will change us until we are all the same.
The miracle will cause the wolf to live with the lamb, the leopard to lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion.
The miracle is led by a child, for the child knows what we have forgotten:
That God is Love and Love is God and that Love is ours.
Always.
A miracle is brewing, it’s time.
time for the “us and thems” to be the we.
time when the “they and those” will be the you and me.
time when peace on earth will be.
Period.
A miracle is brewing, it’s time
Time for the miracle,
brewed in the thoughts of Isaiah
brewed in the yes of Mary.
brewed in the assent of Joseph.
brewed in the cries of the newborn savior,
to live.
Among us.
Within us.
Between Us.
A miracle is brewing.
Stir it.
Nurture it.
Tend it.
A miracle is brewing and we must –how can we not?—let it have its way with us.
(copyright The Rev’d Catherine Dempesy-Sims, 2011)
A miracle IS brewing.
Amen.
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