Dear Saints,
I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the locust tree. Some call them beautiful. For me, they’re something to be cut down. I first encountered them several years ago as major pests in my yard … damaging my house, blocking my satellite TV signal, and making a mess of things when they shed their leaves and pods. So, I got out my chain saw and cut them down. That was that! Until a couple years later, I noticed new locust trees where the old ones stood … growing from the stumps I left behind. This tree, though it looked dead, sprouted leaves, flowers, and fruit! Things were looking up for it!
Around 700 B.C. God sent His prophet Isaiah to His people Judah. Long before Isaiah, a man named Jesse had a son named David. God anointed David as king of His people (1 Samuel 16:1-13). And for a time, Israel, under King David was obedient to God and His Word. However, eventually the mighty kingdom God established under David fell into depravity. But God, remembering He made a promise to David centuries before that David’s kingdom and throne would be established forever (2 Samuel 7:12-17), reminded His people of His promise through Isaiah, saying “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit (Isaiah 11:1).” Nevertheless, in time, God cut down the kingdom of Judah and it’s evil, wicked kings. He had them carted off to exile in Babylon. The stump looked, for all who saw it, dead …
Then one night, in a small, unimportant village a small shoot emerged from the family tree of Jesse. It wasn’t much to look at … the first ones to hear its cry were probably some cows and sheep and goats foraging for a midnight snack in the stable … who found a baby lying in the place their food should’ve been. The first people to hear its cry, besides the poor girl and carpenter husband who were its parents, were some lowly shepherds. Yet this baby was the fulfillment of Isaiah’s 700-year old prophecy. Jesus, the Son of God, was the shoot from the stump of Jesse (Matthew 1:6-16) … a shoot that became a branch which bore much fruit for His Father in heaven. Through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection all who believe in Him … though dead in sin, receive new life in Christ Jesus. Things are looking up!
Mankind, because of sin, is nothing more than a forest of lifeless stumps. However, Jesus, the Living Water (John 4:14) and the Light of the World (John 8:12), gives new life to lifeless stumps! Through the waters of baptism lifeless, rotting stumps have been brought to new life. By the power of the Holy Spirit, given in baptism, we believe in God the Father’s promise of forgiveness and eternal life that comes to all who believe in His Son, Jesus. Raised from mere stumps to living branches, we also begin to bear the good fruit of the Spirit in God’s creation. Fruit which God uses to raise more dead stumps to new life. So, let’s give thanks to God for enabling us to see that things are, in fact, looking up!
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Jim