Isaiah 11:1-5
December 18, 2011
A shoot shall come out from the stump
of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord
shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of
counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His
delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes
see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the
poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the
earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill
the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness
the belt around his loins.
2500
years ago, the prophet Isaiah set a tone for the Jewish, and later the Christian,
faith that ever since has been foundational to our beliefs. He used a poetic image to describe the nature
of our faith. He said, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of
Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.”
Quiz
time. What did he mean by this? Who was Jesse, and why would a shoot come out
of his stump? You may not know it, but
you do remember Jesse. Jesse was King
David’s father. And if you remember the
story of the prophet Samuel in the Old Testament, Samuel was led to Jesse in
Bethlehem to find the next king, and he found David among Jesse’s sons. Isaiah was speaking to Jews after the kingdom
of Judea had been conquered by the Babylonians, and all the artisans, scholars,
and anyone with a skill, had been transported 700 miles to serve as slaves in
Babylon. Everything was dark and seemed
hopeless. Isaiah was saying that even though the lineage of David, and
therefore Jesse, had seemed to have been wiped out, there was still hope.
He
was comparing Israel to a mighty tree that had been cut down, but had the
potential for new life will grow out of it.
Israel had been a mighty tree, much like an oak, that had been cut down
by the Babylonians. But new life was
already emerging. It was small, and
barely perceptible by the Israelites, but it was growing. They needed to have faith and hope.
Christian
scholars have debated for centuries what Isaiah meant by our passage. Was he actually prophesying Jesus’ coming? Was he simply telling the Jews something about
their fate after their exile to Babylon?
Was it something else? Regardless
of what he was referring to back then, one thing is undeniable. He was describing the nature of Jewish and Christian
faith then and now, which is that with God nothing is ever dead. God is always working to renew life, and to
resurrect out of death something new. With
any death begins the process of new life.
Ultimately
he was saying that our faith, and the Jewish faith that it is built upon, is a
Cinderella faith. Embedded in our faith
is the idea that no matter how bad things get, no matter how desperate they
seem, God is always there to redeem us, restore us, renew us, and resurrect us.
Christianity,
at its core, is always looking for something new to come out of even the worst
situations. The post-World War II
pastor, Dietrich, understood this facet of Christian faith. At the end of World War II, he helped many
devastated and hopeless Germans deal with the terrible things they had done
during the war. Pastor Dietrich was
instrumental in helping them heal their wounds.
He was one of them. He had done
terrible things himself, and like them he was complicit in all the terrible
things the Nazis had done prior to and during the war. Yet after the war he preached a consistent
message of God’s grace, love, and forgiveness, all of which he had experienced
during the war. God had transformed him
from a Nazi animal to a man of love. How
did he become such a caring presence? It
all started in the early years of the war when he had been part of the infantry
in the German army as they battled the Russians.
It
was the winter of 1941. Terrible battles
were being waged as the Germans penetrated further and further into
Russia. If you know anything about the
German army’s attack against the Russians, you know that they were incredibly
naïve in how they did it. They attacked
in mid-summer, giving themselves little time before winter, and the Russian
winter was one of Russia’s greatest defenses.
Winter came and the German army became bogged down.
Also,
the Russian army had a particular defensive strategy that worked perfectly
against the Germans, albeit a defense that was grounded on a massive disregard
for Russian casualties. The Germans had
perfected the blitzkrieg strategy in which they would mobilize their air force,
infantry, and tank cavalry to quickly break through enemy lines, thus taking over
lands before the defenders knew what was happening. The Russian army didn’t react the way other
armies did, by putting up a massive wall of resistance, forcing the Germans to
break through, and then caving quickly once the Russians did break through. Instead, they deployed their army into successive
wide and narrow defensive lines that could be easily broken through, each line
about ½ a mile apart, forming ten or twelve lines.
The
Germans would easily break through the first line, and then attack the following
line. But each time the line that had
been broken through would fall back and fortify the line behind them. As the Germans penetrated further, they not
only found each line becoming stronger with the support of the previous lines,
but the previous lines falling back could also attack the sides and back of the
German army, thus surrounding them and cutting them off. Typically the Germans would penetrate through
to the fifth or sixth line and then find themselves bogged down and
encircled. What seemed like a successful
thrust towards victory could easily leave German troops caught behind enemy
lines with little hope for support as the Russian Army surged forward.
During
one particular battle the Russian army fell back time and time again, and
suddenly they surged forward in a massive counterattack. As a result, a Nazi soldier, Dietrich, found
himself stranded behind enemy lines. He
was confused, frozen, and terrified. He
knew that the Russians treated their prisoners horribly. So he scrambled through the forest, anxiously
trying to make it back to the German lines.
Exhausted and cold, he eventually came across a small hut with a wisp of
smoke escaping from its chimney.
He
burst through the door only to find a tiny, poor, old Russian woman eating her
dinner. He angrily pushed her aside as
he ransacked the house, looking for hidden dangers. As he turned back toward the woman, he was
surprised to find her holding out a dish of food for him. Dietrich grabbed the plate out of her hands
and greedily slurped down the food. Much
to his surprise, the old woman gave him more, and she took care of him for the
next three days. No matter how harshly
he treated her, she responded with warmth and love. Why was she doing this? What made it even more puzzling was that if
caught, she was certain to be shot for hiding a German soldier. Why would she do this for an enemy?
Finally,
Dietrich decided that it was time to try and reach the German lines. Before he left, though, he had to know why
she treated him so well when he had treated her so badly. Though they did not understand a word of each
other’s language, he finally was able to communicate his question: “Why have you taken care of me when I have
treated you so poorly?” Her answer was
simple and direct. She pointed to a
crucifix on the wall. She had treated
him this way because she loved God, and she knew that God loved Dietrich. Her vision was so God-bathed that she did not
see in Dietrich as an enemy. She saw in
him a child of God who was scared, hungry, and helpless. And it was God’s love in her that called her
to treat Dietrich with love, forgiveness, and compassion.
This
woman’s love for God had a profound effect on Dietrich. For the rest of the war, he reflected on the
woman’s kindness and her faith. He
wanted something like that in his life.
How could he get it? He decided
that turning his life over to Christ was the only answer. Her love for God allowed him to love God
also. And so after the war he pursued
God, and eventually became a Lutheran pastor so that he could serve God in
providing the German people with the same kind of love, forgiveness, and
compassion that the Russian woman had given him. Dietrich had been resurrected and renewed,
and he helped the German people become resurrected and renewed, too.
We
are a resurrection people in more ways than one. We follow a faith that says that nothing is
ever hopeless, nothing is ever a lost cause, if we have faith in God. This is a stump
faith, a faith that says that no matter how dead things seem to be, God can
always bring new life.
Do
you have a stump faith? A faith that
believes in God no matter what, that hopes no matter what, and that is prepared
for new life no matter what? Through Death?
Divorce? Unemployment? Illness? Depression?
Struggle? The thing you need to
hold onto is that a shoot can grow out of the stump of your life, but you have
believe. Amen.
