Devotion - Monday, December 9

I am excited about the plan arrived at by the Tuesday night Bible Study Group to focus our weekly gatherings on the lessons for the upcoming Sunday.  I think this will connect our week-day experience with our Sunday morning worship; it will also allow us time to explore all three of the appointed text - whereas most sermons only focus on one.

I wanted to give a bit of attention to the First lesson for this past Sunday - but I avoided the temptation.  It is a powerful text - speaking of Messiah as a  "shoot" that will spring froth from the "stump of Jesse".

Isaiah 11:1-10 is a gem.  Its opening verses provide the promises from which UniLu crafts our monthly service for baptismal anniversaries.  

Verses 6-8 were the content of the first sermon that I ever preached.

It was 4-H Sunday, my home congregation was without a pastor at the time.  The Interim Pastor met with me on three occasions to help me "write" a sermon.  The text on which I focused that sermon was;

The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid,

the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall like down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder's den.

It is a glorious vision of what life could be - should God do that which brings an end to hostility.  It is a beautiful statement of how those whom God have created might share this earth and its bounty.  It is a promise which has shaped every sermon I have preached since.

My faith in Christ allows me to set aside my worry about eternity.  My hope is that the bliss and harmony which eternity brings might start to be realized here, now, among us.  This was the promise of Isaiah, that the stump which breaks forth from the stump of Jesse would guide us in making such a world a reality.

Amen, Would that this be so.