There's three scriptures that I'll be reading tonight, so you'll have to jump around a bit. The first is from Mark 4, 26-29, the parable of the growing seed. He also said, this is what the kingdom of God is like, a man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
All by itself the soil produces grain. First the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is right, he puts the sickle to it because the harvest has come. So the second reading is Romans 15, 7-13, except one another thing, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God's truth, so that the promises made to the patriarchs might be confirmed. And moreover that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles. I will sing the praises of your name. Again, in a set, rejoice to your Gentiles with his people.
And again, praise the Lord or your Gentiles, let all the peoples extol him. And again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations. In him the Gentiles will hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The third reading is Isaiah, Isaiah 10, starting at verse 33. He the Lord, your Lord almighty, will lock off the bowels with great power. The lofty trees will be felled. The tall ones will be brought low.
He who cut down the forest thickets with an axe, Lebanon will fall before the mighty one. A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse, from the roots, a branch will bear for it. 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 knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, nor decide 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. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth. With the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist. The wolf will live with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the goat. The calf and the lion and the gheeling together and the little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear.
The young will lie down together and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra's den and the young child will put his hand into the viper's nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountains, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sick. Sorry, pray, let's pray.
Our God, plant your word in our hearts and bear much fruit in your glory in Jesus name. My text today is just a few words from Isaiah 11 verse 1. A fruit will come up from the stump of Jesse from his roots. A branch will bear fruit.
He is a word from God through the prophet Isaiah and written centuries about Jesus. It's a picture here, a metaphor of a future hope for the people of God. Speaking a bit like a family tree, or they're not recording the past like our family trees do but rather speaking of the future which God can do because God is the one promising. But I want you to note that a shoot is always something small.
In the first instance, almost unnoticed, a little green shoot. But from little things, big things grow. I hope to see how you can see how this relates to the Kingdom of God. I think for 2025 and how it relates to Christmas and how it relates to us and our lives.
Our adventure is the seed. I mean, looking at the Kingdom of God through the lens of time passing because the Kingdom of God is a revolution to make no mistake but it's an unusual one because there's no swords, no coup d'etatas, no thugs, please not usually. No immediate seizure of power but it does involve a divine strength that looks at first like weakness. It involves a comprehensive victory.
So slow. It looks like a growing plant. Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like seed. Last week we heard Jesus say, what shall I say?
The Kingdom of God is like what parables have we used to describe it. He says it's like a mustard seed which is the smallest of all seeds on earth. Yet when planted it grows it becomes a large of water garden plants with such big branches that birds can succumb and perch in its shade. Jesus is obviously providing a picture.
He's not telling us about mustard seeds which are neither the smallest of the seeds on earth nor does it become the largest of plants or trees. He's obviously telling us about the Kingdom of God. He says Kingdom of God is like seed. Seed seeds are small but they are packed with life packed with DNA and they win given time and soil.
The point we just heard a moment ago when Jesus also said that Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters seed on the ground night and day. Whether he sleeps or gets up the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how, or by itself the soil produces corn first stalked in the ear then the full grain in the air. Each metaphor about the seed growing should be treated differently but they all have a commonality about them. They're all talking about something small starting seed and growing into a plant or tree and each of them I think in the Bible are in effect about the Kingdom of God and there's plenty and I'll say a few tonight.
But we're asking the question is the seed promised last week or the seed was fully grown for a sudden event, is it promised? Or did Jesus drop this idea out of nowhere? No he didn't, yes it is promised. In those scriptures that these rail reads, written centuries before Jesus, so I have two points if you're writing notes.
The word firstly, secondly we can't flesh. Promise, in Isaiah and how Jesus will feel such a promise. So firstly the word. You might want to pick this up in our passage today, it's actually a story, you know, once there was a stump but, you know, it's a story.
But it begins with a fallen tree or trees. 1033, see the Lord Almighty will lop off the bows of great power. The lofty trees will be felled, the tall ones will be brought low. He will cut down the forest tickets with an axe and say what is a tree?
The answer is given in the specific, Lebanon, will fall for the mighty one. What's he saying? He's saying that God is the just God who sees the sin of the nations and they will be cut down in their arrogance and with great power. He will lay waste nations with sin and destroy creating a clearing for righteousness and peace.
A little bit like if you know the story, Nebuchadnezzar dream in Daniel 4 where Babylon is described as a stump, chained. It's the same metaphor. But in chapter 11 it refers to a particular tree namely the one belonging to the Father of King David, the one belonging to Jesse. But if you think that God just looks a little sin, it should be half right, he does.
But he also sees the great injustices of the world and that's because he is the just one. He is the source of all justice and power. Like I put it this way, God is the rule of law that a term of right and wrong. You thought it was found in the UN or in human rights legislation.
It's important that maybe you be wrong. God is the plumb line of justice. God is the plumb line of justice. People talk about justice as though it's a bubble that sits in the air and you can define it the way you want to.
But we forget that some of the most just people on the earth belong to the mafia and they have their sense, a deep sense of justice and carried out. So justice is going to have to be anchored. It was going to mean anything. It's not hard to argue that God is where human rights come from.
We live in New York City for a couple of years, lived on First Avenue and when we catch a bus up past the UN, it wasn't, it was ironic to me that people ignored the words carved in stone from the prophet Isaiah that would beat their swords into plowshares. The trees in the metaphor are the powers of the earth. The clearing is the justice of God against the powers for the sake of the weak, poor. But there's one nation that takes cares about, the one belonging to the Father of King David.
It turns out all of the sin and the four of the glory of God, including well, Jew first and the Gentile. And so Israel is cut down to the tree. And so secondly we get a stump. Let's call that stump of Jesse, the Father of King David who lived 400 years before this prophecy could be released.
It's hard to know exactly what Isaiah is referring to, he's referring to the 8th century kings who cut down God in the arrogance for his easily referring to the 6th century before Christ exiled with a Babylon cut down Israel for her sin where Babylonians have a learning to destroy the temple and exiled the people of God. Right, you must stick in your mind about a tree stump. Once was Marti, the promises to Abraham, the descendants of Abraham, the patriarchs. Big strong tree, cut down, now looks lifeless, now looks dead, fit to be dug up and discarded all.
Put on fire like they do on those reels that you have to watch. A little bit like the dry bones of Ezekiel 36, again if you know the text, our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, we are cut off, what is needed, is a resurrection. And what we then given is proof of life, a glimpse of the future. A shoot will come from the stump of Jesse, hope for David's line, a horn of salvation for the people of God, signs of resurrection life.
So you should know that this shoot is important but God has already talked about the people of God being like a tree. In the commissioning of Isaiah, he's told to speak to people who won't listen, they're stubborn and as I asked how long do I have to speak to people without them listening, no one likes not being listened to. But God said, you'll speak until cities, of God's people are ruined and without an habitant until the houses are left deserted and the fields ruined and ravaged until the Lord said everyone far away in exile and the land is utterly forsaken. And though a tenth remains in the land, it will again be laid waste but as the tear of it and oak leaves stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be a stump of the land.
And therefore it will already there. But God has made a covenant with his people in a way he hadn't with Lebanon. God loves the way with children, he loves them, especially loves the younger sons who go off the fire of countries. And with turn, he loves to bring life out of death, so we have a shoot that will come from the stump of Jesse.
Do you mind if I take you to a real stump, an obstinometable form, on the northern end of England, close to Scotland, nestled into Hadrian's Wall, once stood an elegant Sycamore gap tree. For more than a century it grew there in a dramatic dip between two hills, people proposed marriage, hiker's took selfies in shade, for those of you who are old and 40, it even made it into a Kevin Costner film, whatever happened to him, Robin Hood. It was cherished and iconic, but in September 2023, someone overnight took a chainsaw to it. Generations to grow, minutes to destroy and to turn into a stump.
In the morning England turned into outrage mode, probably rightly. But the story wasn't and isn't over. Spring came and the Northumberland National Park Authority reported tree spouts, leave alone they posited and it might spout new growth. And behold, story enough, tiny shoots began to appear.
Fragile, first almost invisible but eventually undeniably alive, it will take time for that tree to grow bad. It will take time, but that's how it works. This is Isaiah's image, House of David, Jesse, cut down, Kingdom of God apparently over, but a shoot, there's a US pastor called Liddy Barlow, and she wrote a reflection on this passage writing, but along came Isaiah to post an unlikely sign among the records, the tree stump is still alive. The tree stump is still alive.
Give it time, respect the barrier. New shoot is possible. New life is possible. God is here at work.
A shoot starts small. It requires patience and care. It doesn't germinate in the typical way. It might, for instance, take root in a virgin's womb.
But it holds the potential that a nation earns for a sign that all is not after all destroyed out of devastation. Judgment, death. One will emerge who will restore and renew all creation, there is life yet to come. So far we have a metaphor of a stump and a shoot, but then Isaiah turns the shoot strangely into a he that told from his roots a branch will bear fruit.
From his roots a branch will bear fruit. Verse 2, the spirit of the Lord will rest unto him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of the knowledge and the fear of the Lord and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. Hope then is a person.
This one to come is from God, son of David, son of Jesse, he has God's spirit. This one can't think of anything better than to live in the ore of God. Now remember this text is Old Testament, prophecy is about Jesus. I don't know if you know this, but the earliest copy we had of Isaiah was about 1000 AD in 1950.
Around that time I was all shepherd boy throws a stone into a rock and cumin round caves and they bring out the dead seas scrolls. And Isaiah, the prophet including this text was found there written 200 years before Jesus. So this text is predates Christ. But it is about Jesus, he will not judge by what he sees with his eyes or decide by what he hears with his ears.
He will not decide by what he sees or hears. Tell me you who are involved in the law. What other way, you said a judge to discern him beside, he can't pick motives, he can't read hearts. There's no other way than your eyes or your ears or maybe the eyes and ears of witnesses.
They're not hearts. This one to come knows hearts. He can discern what's really going on. We might like to think that we can divine motives, but we can't and one can.
And this one we told cares for the poor verse for with righteousness he will judge for the needy with justice he will give this is for the poor of the earth as opposed to the powerful nations. But unless we think we have one to come who's a mere civil servant whose job it is to distribute wealth or some sort of social justice warrior, he will also come glory to judge the quick and the dead because he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteous will be his belt and faith on us the sash around his waist. And the fruit of this branch from this chute from this stump of this tree is peace.
Shalom. Verse 6 the wolf famously will live with the lamb. The leopard will lie down with the goat. Leopards lying down with goats.
They normally don't because they normally kill each other and eat each other. Verse 7 the cow will feed with the bear. Their young will lie down together. And the lion will eat straw like the ox.
These pictures are not answering the question what will a zoo look like in the kingdom of God, but rather what kind of comprehensive peace that God have for this planet he made and loves. As I 11 is the answer to our prayer may your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And what if human beings? Verse 8 the infant will play near the cobra's den and the young child will put his hand in the viper's nest.
It's a picture of safety, of no abuse, of love and care. 4 verse 9 they will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain. Jesus called this future reality the kingdom of God which grows like seed. John Dixon says this, he says, Professor in Chicago, Australian, a friend of this church.
He says anyone who has ever wished for the world to become a better place has in some sense even through a glass darkly. In some sense, wished for the kingdom of God. Sam Ganges to Gandalf and Lord of the Rings is everything sad going to come untrue. The answer is yes, I 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 seed.
It starts with a promise of old, a word and yet the word became flesh and made is dwelling among us. The promise there is from God it has its yes in Christ. Jesus is the suit out of the stamp of Israel. The son of David, the son of Jesse, Mary was told by the angel he will be great and we call the son of the most high, the Lord will give him the throne of his Father David.
Zechariah prophesies God has raised up a form of salvation for us in the house of His servant, David. That's why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. The hopes and fears of all the years I made in thee tonight. Luke 2 verse 4, Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee in the north to Judea in the south to Bethlehem, the town of David because he belonged to the house and the line of David.
That's why the angels said to the shepherds today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you and he is the Messiah, the Lord. Once in royal David's he stood alone in Calcian. This promise is fulfilled in Jesus who knew the kingdom of God was seed, small but packed with life. Again, another use of the metaphor but they blend together but strictly treated separately.
Jesus said in John 12 verse 24 that he's the seed, the lesser seed falls to the ground, doesn't produce many seeds unless he dies and goes to the tomb, there won't be resurrection life. And after the resurrection we hear echoes of Isaiah 11 in Revelation 5, one of the oldest said to John, don't weep, the root of David has triumphed. And Revelation 22, Jesus and the soft says, I Jesus and the root and the offspring of David and the bright morning star. Do you hear it?
Or do you miss it? I'm the root and the offspring of David. I'm not merely the offspring of David, if I'm a mere descendant, I'm David's root. I am King David's nourishment.
He comes from me. But I also come after David as he's descendant there. He's the great I am. This is why Jesus teased the Pharisees.
Why does David say the Lord said, the My Lord said at My right hand? He's both David's Lord and Son. Which makes the sense of the twist in Isaiah 11 verse 10 in that day the root of Jesse, not the shoot of Jesse, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples, the nations will rally to him, the Messiah, and his resting place will be glorious. As the Carol says, O come, O come the branch of Jesse's den unto your own and rest with him.
And so the other word is fulfilled in you. In Romans 15 that second reading, Paul says the root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations. In him the Gentiles will hope. As you know how many promises that God has made, they are yes in Christ.
And so through him the amen is spoken by us, the glory of God. The fourth point there is that Jewish people and Gentile people, wolves lying with lands, or lands lying with wolves, normally they wore, but they share in the same root promises that people who formerly hated each other are now two verse seven except one another just as Christ accepted you in order to be praised to God. So the people of God at peace are the tree produced by the life of Jesus and you've been grasped in as though a wild olive shoots. So enjoy the life that you have in the resurrection of the Son of God.
Be nourished to drink deeply of Christ or again the metaphor slightly different. Pretty similar, as James says, we need to humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you, planted in you which can save you after all from little things, big things grow. Holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. And, sonly, how sonly the wondrous get this given.
In the same way God impasse to human us the blessings of his heaven. We're going to sing that right now. I'm going to ask, build a come forward. Actually come forward, I'm going to leave you with what the tree of life looks like in us, Paul writes, made the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind towards each other that Christ Jesus had so that with one mind and one voice you may glorify the God and Father about Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.