Last week our Christmas tree sprouted again in our lounge. Christmas has arrived, and with it the indoor and outdoor decorations that add colour to this time of year, and my admiration for my wife’s creativity and decorative flourish. The Christmas tree’s origins and message are disputed, but one thing not in dispute is that the prophet Isaiah spoke of Jesus, the Messiah, as a shoot from the stump of Jesse.
While Christmas typically takes us to the wonderful passages of Isaiah 7 and 9, the coming Messiah was prophesied throughout Isaiah and the whole Old Testament. In Isaiah 11, the coming of the Messiah promises the universal righteous reign and rule of Jesus, our Saviour. Jesus’ arrival promised more than an earthly king, it promised the arrival of a truly faithful and righteous leader and the remaking of the cosmic order.
In approximately 700 BC, the promises of God were difficult to understand. God spoke to his people through his prophet Isaiah promising them that the problems of unrighteous kings and unholy world powers trampling all over their real estate were not the end of things. Using concepts and ideas familiar to Isaiah’s hearers, God promised that better days were coming.
Faced with an ungodly and unfaithful King Ahaz, and the nation of Assyria on the prowl, things did not look good for the faithful Israelites living in the Southern Kingdom of Judah (hundreds of years prior, Israel and Judah had split after Solomon’s reign). But the Assyrians would be chopped down like a forest (Isaiah 10), and the unfaithful kings would also be felled.
From that stump would “come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (v.1). This was not just another Davidic king, but another David. God’s spirit would rest on this new King David, with threefold gifts. He would have “the Spirit of wisdom and understanding” to lead, “the Spirit of counsel and might” for war, and “the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD” to spiritually lead his people (v.2).
Unlike their unfaithful kings, this promised shoot would delight in serving God instead of his own desires, and would reign in righteousness and faithfulness, especially to the meek and the poor (vv.2-5). He would not judge based on appearances but on the heart, with righteousness and faithfulness adorning him like a belt around him.
The reign of the messianic shoot would also bring about a dramatic change in the circumstances of God’s People. Isaiah used the picture of the transformation of nature to describe the effects on Creation of the Messiah. “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat…” (v.6). Predators lying down peacefully with their prey, led by little children rather than attacking and consuming.
The imagery goes further. Carnivores will consume vegetation rather than other animals, alongside oxen and cows (v.7). Young children would provocatively place their hands in harm’s way, yet not suffer harm (v.8). Finally, speaking as God’s mouthpiece the prophet announces that “my holy mountain” will no longer face attack or destruction, because “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea” (v.9).
Creation would return to its Edenic, pre-Fall state. These verses picture a situation where there is no longer trouble and disharmony, going beyond the absence of Assyrian or Babylonian devastations to Creation-wide peace and prosperity.
These verses promised God’s people that the arrival of Jesus was not just about restoring things to the best they got under David and Solomon, still both affected by sin, but to the ideal which David and Solomon’s reigns pointed to. The whole cosmic order would be remade, and sin and death banished.
The veiled reference to another David, who reigns in righteousness and faithfulness, visiting mercy on the meek and poor, pointed forward to Jesus. Jesus not only reigned in righteousness, but is the embodiment of God’s righteousness. Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus is our Immanuel – God with us. God’s Spirit was upon Jesus, and Jesus could judge with perfect righteousness because he knows what is in the heart of man (John 2:24-5). Jesus’ kingdom will ultimately defeat all nations, great and small, that oppose it, just as Jesus defeated sin and death at the Cross.
Further, the talk of the Messianic age being one of peaceful coexistence between predator and prey means the decisive defeat of the effects and power of sin. The reconciliation of carnivorous and herbivorous animals, and the exercise of dominion by even young children (bearing nevertheless God’s Image) describes paradise restored. Serpents not biting young children points to a removal of the curse.
Jesus’ birth means more than presents. It means the arrival of our Saviour, who would defeat all the nations, will rule and reign in righteousness, banish the effects and power of sin, and remove the curse so we can dwell with God in peace. Doesn’t that make you even more excited for Christmas?