A Vision of the King

1 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— 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 cobra’s den, the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. 9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Christmas is a holiday when so many of us get caught up in nostalgic feelings of good times and fond memories. We idealize Christmas as a time when we are supposed to be happy, when we are supposed to put aside petty differences and divisions and we are supposed to come together to celebrate the gift of Jesus given for the world.

Maybe Christmas doesn’t always actually turn out to be that way for us all the time. But we still long for it, we still desire a vision for a Christmas of happiness and contentment. That seems to be the kind of poetic vision that the prophet Isaiah is picturing in this passage. And it is poetry. We should remember that. Isaiah is not giving literal descriptions of the coming kingdom, these are poetic comparisons that give us a picture. So, it’s up to us today to dig behind the pictures in these words and catch a glimpse of the gift of Christmas. Isaiah is giving us a Christmas vision of the coming king. It would be good for us today to remember the kind of world Isaiah is writing into. That would help for us to better understand how this poem creates a vision for the coming king that we celebrate today.

Isaiah is writing his letter to a group of people who are living in pretty desperate times. They are living in a world that has slowly and steadily been plunged into increasing darkness. The triumphant times of king David seem like a distant memory from a time that has long since faded away. They are nothing more than stories that exist in the history books. The time of king David has become something of the nostalgic picture of the perfect Christmas past in the minds of Israelites in Isaiah’s day. The Christmas gift of a Messiah from God always points back to David for these people. Isaiah makes that pretty clear in this passage by starting with a reference to David’s father, Jesse.

This tells us something about Isaiah’s time. The stump of Jesse—or root of Jesse—gives us a picture that the family tree of king David is all but cut down. Isaiah is living in a time when it appears to him and those around him that the lineage of David is all but dead. The promises of God delivered through the kings of the generations have been completely cut away. The people of Israel have gone completely off the tracks. They—and their kings—have not followed God the way in which he commanded.

One king after another strayed further and further away from the fear and knowledge of God. Isaiah uses those terms twice in this passage—once at the beginning and once at the end. The fear of the Lord is understood in Hebrew to be a reference to obedience to God. The fear of the Lord is also understood as a reverence for the glory of God. It is a recognition of one’s place in life under the reign and authority of the almighty God. The knowledge of the Lord in Hebrew is about more than knowledge about God. It is a knowledge of God that requires an intimate relationship with God.

One-by-one the kings of Judah had fallen away from ruling in the fear and knowledge of the Lord. They no longer obeyed God. They no longer held reverence for God’s glory. They no longer lived in a relationship with God. And because of this all the people of Judah are falling further and further into darkness and despair.

In fact, the fear and knowledge of the Lord seems like such a distant memory of so long ago, that the only way Isaiah has to describe it is through poetic language that captures the imagination. The Messiah who comes from God and returns God’s people to himself has to be described with words that jolt people’s memories into seeing the vision of the Messiah as king once again.

Consider some of this language that Isaiah uses and see how it paints a picture of just how dark the world was as he and God’s people were waiting for the Christmas Messiah. This is a messiah king that is so distant from anything they have known in recent history that Isaiah has to trace it all the way back the exact same roots from which David came. A new branch must come up from the root of Jesse’s family. David’s family line has become so tainted that the only way Isaiah can imagine to create a vision of God’s salvation is to take it all the way back to the place where it began for the kingly line of David. Just like David seemed to come out of nowhere and be raised up by God at just the right time, Isaiah reminds the people of God that his Messiah will also come from unlikely roots from an unlikely town and be raised up by God at just the right time.

And this Messiah will not be like the other kings. Isaiah says he will possess a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a Spirit of counsel and of might. The world in which Isaiah lived was filled with rulers who had lost all spiritual authority. Isaiah says He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. The people of Isaiah’s world judged by their own self-interest. They made decisions based upon whatever kept them in power and gave them the most advantage.

So, just how different will it be when God’s Messiah comes and restores the hearts of his people back to the heavenly Father? Here is where Isaiah gives us a picture of something that can only be described as the complete opposite of violence and danger and destruction. He talks about wolves and lions and bears lying down and feeding along with lambs and goats and oxen. He talks about children playing with venomous snakes. Isaiah gives a picture of a world so absent of violence that all of God’s creation lives together in harmony.

Again, Isaiah is not presenting a literal description. He is using poetry to spark the imaginations of the people. Can you imagine a world like this? Can you imagine a world in which justice and righteousness are so abundant that all of God’s creation returns to the fear and knowledge of the Lord? In a world which seems so very dark, where can a light like this appear? Where does this begin?

It seems that in order for God to redirect the world in a trajectory that accomplishes this kind of change, he would certainly need to do something enormous and powerful. God would have to slam the world with so much bright light that it would simply swallow up and completely eradicate all darkness. This sounds like a Noah kind of moment. It’s time for God to wipe the slate clean and start completely over. It is going to take a light so big and so bright that it absolutely overtakes every corner of the universe by force.

But this is not what God does. He does not send a light so blinding that it consumes and overtakes the world by force. Instead, God’s Christmas Messiah comes as a single flame, a tiny baby in Bethlehem. But this child is no ordinary light. Jesus came into the world so that, through his sacrifice and resurrection, the light of his Spirit may live within our hearts. Now this one single light which appeared on the first Christmas is a light which grows and spreads and becomes brighter and bigger as the Holy Spirit continues to fan the flame of Jesus into the hearts and souls of people around the world.

The greatest gift we receive on Christmas is the gift of God’s light given for us. It is a gift of light that is not meant for us to hoard and keep to ourselves. It is a light that is given to us in order that we may share this light with others. And as we spread the light of Jesus about us we see a world that once was clouded in darkness now becomes a world shining with the light of Jesus.

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