Salvation is the ‘reason for the season’

“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 — 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,” Isaiah 11:1-2, 10

Are you missing someone this Christmas season who has been taken from you by death? Are things not so good for you this year because of divorce, unemployment, illness? ’Tis the season for a lot of happy times and we thank God when we can enjoy them. Unfortunately, it is also the season where the sad times can seem even sadder and we ask God to help us. And he does in his word.

The season of Christmas is about promises fulfilled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, promises kept for our joy, our strengthening, and our comfort in our hour of sadness.

Today you and I are going to see such a promise from the pen of the prophet Isaiah.

“Messiah is coming — a living branch out of a dead stump!”

The time in Judah is about 700 B.C., not the most glamorous time in the history of the people to whom God chose to make his promise for the world. This is not the age of the patriarchs. It’s not Joshua’s era of conquest, or the Israel’s golden age under the great kings David and Solomon. Wicked and idolatrous kings have brought God’s wrath upon his people. Only a few years before, the fierce armies of Assyria swept the 10 northern tribes away into oblivion. Judah has become a mere political pawn in the hands of Egypt, Assyria and Babylon. King Hezekiah tried to purge Judah of idolatry and restore true temple worship. But it’s too little, too late. Already the Lord’s prophet, Isaiah, is issuing stern warnings to the slackers, foretelling Jerusalem’s destruction and its captivity. But the Lord’s prophet has another message, a message of hope. Long years have passed since Adam and Eve first heard that message. Gross wickedness has piled up since Abraham, Moses and David repeated the promise. Now, in a day when God’s promise was all there was left for Judah, Isaiah’s clear prophecies of the Messiah stand out.

The picture of a half-dead stump — this was Jesse’s (King David’s father) family tree. How majestic that tree was during the reigns of David and Solomon. But the tree had become diseased and rotten. Then came the Babylonian captivity and subjection under the empires of Persia, Egypt, Syria and Rome. Nothing more than a half dead stump was left when Joseph and Mary, poor and insignificant descendants of Jesse, made their way to Bethlehem for the tax rolls. But new growth coming from that ugly stump for Isaiah promises a glorious branch that would far surpass the old tree.

When Isaiah refers to the Messiah as “The Branch,” did you know that word brings us a message of renewal? The one who came to save still comes to renew us weak sinners so we can start over every day. Yesterday we wavered in our trust and doubted him. With his word, Jesus builds us up again in faith, so we can start over today trusting him to handle all those scary uncertainties of life, to help us carry the burdens of our own personal troubles.

The picture of Jesus as a new shoot from a dead stump also reminds us things are not always as they appear. It may seem at times as though our God is absent, and we’re left to make the best of a life gone wrong. It may seem that evil is winning, that good goes unrewarded. Look again. The baby in a manger didn’t look much like a king, either. His ministry wouldn’t have been our game plan. On the cross it looked as if this Messiah was just one more victim of injustice. But look again. Don’t judge by what you see and hear. Behind that lowly manger and rugged cross is a triumphant resurrection, a glorious ascension, and our Lord Jesus now sitting at God’s right hand where he rules the universe and takes care of every detail of our lives.

Sometimes Christmas is a season when we see only a Christ-child, a manger scene with angels and shepherds. The season becomes more sentimental than salvation. Isaiah didn’t see Christmas that way. He saw the whole story of Christ’s coming, from God’s first promises to the Messiah’s second coming in judgment. Maybe those Old Testament believers didn’t get to see everything we’ve seen. They didn’t see the fulfillment of Isaiah’s promises or all the details of the gospels. But then, they didn’t see sacred songs of praise turned into Christmas carol come-ons for shoppers in the malls either. They didn’t have to sift through tinsel and commercialism and self-induced stress over silly, worldly things to locate the real “reason for the season.” For Isaiah and other Old Testament believers, Christmas meant the joy, the strength, and the comfort of God coming to earth so, someday, sinful humans could go to God in heaven. That’s what Christmas meant then. That’s still what Christmas means for me and for you!

Robb Robbert is pastor of King of Kings Lutheran Church in Wasilla. Contact him at kokw@mtaonline.net.

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