Advent 2
Isaiah 11:1-10, Matthew 3:1-12
These two passages together might carry the title: "God the Forester." In some ways this is a difficult image, for trees are being cut down, pruned and burned. In other ways it is a hopeful image, with shoots of new life coming from what has been cut. It depends on what kind of tree you perceive yourself to be!
In chapter 10 of Isaiah, we read about God destroying trees that do not bear fruit in Israel, both those representing foreign invaders and those representing unfaithful Israelites. Verse 19 notes that the remaining trees will be so few that a child could count them. Verses 33 and 34 show God hacking down trees with an ax.
Very much like the imagery John the Baptist shares in Matthew 3:10. We are reading about God's judgment, something most of us good progressive Protestants want to leave to the evangelicals or Roman Catholics to talk about. But these readings this week really don't allow much escape from this theme. If we are going to talk about a shoot coming up from a stump, then we have to account for the existence of the stump!
In Isaiah, that shoot probably was understood to be a new king who would rule with justice, and that hope gets paired here with a hope that a new ruler would also usher in a time of unprecedented peace, symbolized by all those animals getting along. Christians often read back into this passage the hope for Jesus, but we have to be careful not to assume Isaiah was talking about a messiah. The attributes here are those any people would wish for their ruler.
John the Baptist, on the other hand, is fairly clear about the "one who is to come" (and we have no indication here that he knows it is his cousin, Jesus) will come with power and judgment and not just as a nice guy. It's easy for this to get lost at Christmas, and we often want to keep Jesus a baby so we can feel all good about him without John's words of judgment. But it was the judgment part of Jesus that actually got him killed.
As we get caught up in reindeer and tinsel, bells and gifts, we need to hear the words of John about who exactly it is we are welcoming!
These two passages together might carry the title: "God the Forester." In some ways this is a difficult image, for trees are being cut down, pruned and burned. In other ways it is a hopeful image, with shoots of new life coming from what has been cut. It depends on what kind of tree you perceive yourself to be!
In chapter 10 of Isaiah, we read about God destroying trees that do not bear fruit in Israel, both those representing foreign invaders and those representing unfaithful Israelites. Verse 19 notes that the remaining trees will be so few that a child could count them. Verses 33 and 34 show God hacking down trees with an ax.
Very much like the imagery John the Baptist shares in Matthew 3:10. We are reading about God's judgment, something most of us good progressive Protestants want to leave to the evangelicals or Roman Catholics to talk about. But these readings this week really don't allow much escape from this theme. If we are going to talk about a shoot coming up from a stump, then we have to account for the existence of the stump!
In Isaiah, that shoot probably was understood to be a new king who would rule with justice, and that hope gets paired here with a hope that a new ruler would also usher in a time of unprecedented peace, symbolized by all those animals getting along. Christians often read back into this passage the hope for Jesus, but we have to be careful not to assume Isaiah was talking about a messiah. The attributes here are those any people would wish for their ruler.
John the Baptist, on the other hand, is fairly clear about the "one who is to come" (and we have no indication here that he knows it is his cousin, Jesus) will come with power and judgment and not just as a nice guy. It's easy for this to get lost at Christmas, and we often want to keep Jesus a baby so we can feel all good about him without John's words of judgment. But it was the judgment part of Jesus that actually got him killed.
As we get caught up in reindeer and tinsel, bells and gifts, we need to hear the words of John about who exactly it is we are welcoming!
posted by shelly @ 10:43 AM
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