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Isaiah 11:1-11 Advent 2
A New World Coming – Righteousness and Justice
December 4, 2022
Rev’d Chris Johnson
Welcome to Week 2 in Advent and our series, ‘A New World Coming’ from the book of Isaiah.
Last week we looked at Isaiah 2 and that powerful image of World Peace in v4, “They will beat their
swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against
nation, nor will they train for war anymore.”
The theme of World Peace continues in today's reading from Chapter 11 using the metaphor of the
animal world.
Isaiah chooses a number of animals where -one is strong and the other is weak,
-one is the hunter and the other is the hunted,
-one is prey for the other and has every right to be afraid.
Isaiah pictures these animals now living in complete harmony.
V6 -The wolf lives with the lamb,
-the leopard will lie down with the goat,
-the calf and the lion will get on with each other and
-the cow will feed with the bear.
What's more one of the most vulnerable of human beings a little child is seen to be completely safe
amongst these dangerous animals.
In v6 a child will lead these animals that were formerly enemies and in
v8 a child will be quite safe playing with snakes.
“The infant will play near the cobras den, the young child
will put his hand into the Vipers nest.”
It's hard to imagine a world that looks like this.
And it is just as hard to imagine a world where countries
don't devour one another.
Can you imagine a world where countries are always looking out for the
interests of other countries, rather than their own self interest?
But the Isaiah picture is about countries
that were former enemies, now living in peace.
It is a beautiful picture of the new world which is coming.
Isaiah 11 gives us a lot more detail than last week on how this World Peace will be achieved.
The chapter
talks about a Godly figure who is going to come and set everything right.
He is not named here as the
Messiah but there is no doubt this person is consistent with the Messiah figure talked about elsewhere.
Chapter 2, “He will judge between the nations”,
Chapter 7 “Immanuel”,
Chapter 9 “To us a child is born, to us a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders”.
These passages are very familiar in the season of Advent.
They of course point to the Messiah, God's
anointed servant who will bring God’s salvation, God's peace.
In Chapter 11 the Lord’s anointed is described as “A shoot from the stump of Jesse.”
Jesse was king
David's father.
So this points to the fact that the Messiah will be from the family line of David and be a
King.
The stump is the nation of Judah and it is a picture of a nation that has been cut down.
It is a picture of
God’s people defeated and in exile.
It is a picture of God's judgement on the nation for its sin.
1
But it is not just God's people who are judged, it is all the nations.
If you look at the previous Chapter 10
you will see that the other nations, who have been used by God to judge Judah and Israel, will also have
their day of reckoning.
A similar image is used in v33 and 34.
“See, the Lord the Almighty, will lop off the
boughs with great power.
The lofty trees will be felled, the tall ones will be brought low.
He will cut down
the forest thickets with an axe; Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.”
So God's people will be judged.
The Pagan nations will be judged and especially Assyria who will take the people into exile.
But there is one enormous difference between Judah and Assyria.
-Assyria is felled never to rise again.
-Judah is felled to have a new life emerge from its stump.
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse.
And this Messiah will be one like the son of Jesse, King David.
Yet one who is in every way superior to
David.
Now I want you to think for a moment what makes for a great leader?
Who is the leader who can bring peace to a nation?
I want to suggest two qualities are essential for this type of leader.
They have to be just, and they have to
be powerful.
And you need both.
There can be no peace without both.
If the leader is powerful, but without justice, then they are just an autocrat or dictator.
Someone like
Vladimir Putin, or Joseph Stalin, or Mao Zedong, or Adolf Hitler.
Powerful men who have no sense of justice are just plain scary.
It is not what makes for peace and history
has surely shown that.
On the other hand if you have a strong sense of justice but are not powerful, then you're not in a position
to see that justice is done.
And once again this is not what makes for peace; at least not in the immediate
situation.
I think of people like Francis of Assisi, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Aung San Su Kyi in Burma.
All of
these leaders have strong justice credentials but no political power so they were unable to bring about
peace in each of their historical contexts.
Now the wonderful thing about the ‘shoot from the stump of Jesse’ is that he will rule powerfully with
justice.
Isaiah Chapter 11 presents us with just such a leader,
-Filled with the Holy Spirit v2,
-Delighting in the fear of the Lord v3,
-Judging with righteousness for the poor of the earth v3&4,
-Powerfully bringing together former enemies v6-9,
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