Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

Isaiah 11:1-9 –
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.
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 lie 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 is hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (NRSV)

In many families, especially those with small children, Christmas is a time when people have to be very careful about being “fair.”  If you get one of those for Jenna, you have to get one for Jessica too.  How old was Jeremy when he got his first bike, because you can’t give one to Kayla till she’s at least as old as he was.  

Even as adults, we sometimes indulge in the petty habits of measuring the signs of love coming from our family members, to see whether we’re as beloved as brothers or sisters or cousins.  The ideal Christmas in many families is the one where everyone is happy because everyone feels equally loved, or perhaps less flatteringly, everyone feels like they’re just slightly more beloved than everyone else, so they’re satisfied.

This need for careful calculation of who got what and whether it was what they deserved has been with us since the dawn of time.  In reading Isaiah 11, we get to eavesdrop on another people’s concept of how everything can be perfect.  They seemed interested in fairness too.  The judge won’t just make decisions based on appearances, but will look more deeply to see what is truly just.  But it’s even prettier than that – all the animals will get along too.

The truth is that our ability to understand God’s justice is very limited.  We can describe what would seem fair to us, but the animals may not agree.  It’s not in a lion’s nature to eat just straw, and who made that lion the way it is, after all?  We will never be able to comprehend just how God will make all things right.  The mind of God is too big for our little brains.

But in the meantime, these visions of the “peaceable kingdom” can stand as symbols and signs for us, of the promise that God will, indeed, bring peace to his world one day.  These beautiful, if incomplete, descriptions can give us hope when it seems that evil is taking the day.  Though we may not understand how it will happen, we know that things will be put to rights.  “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”