Little Shoot

I know it's trite to compare a new infant to expectation, reconciliation and dreams of the future, but today . . . I can't help it. Today is a great day to put on hope and joy, come what may. Here's an excerpt from today's Advent devotion:

"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"

Isaiah 11:1-2

A STUMP, THE SPIRIT, A SHOOT
Isaiah speaks of a stump—there are a lot stumps on battlefields—an eloquent symbol of desolation and despair and ending and defeat and death.
But wait—enter God's spirit. The poet refers to God's life-giving, future-creating, world-forming, despair-ending, power and wind, which can create an utter newness. This "wind of God" is inscrutable, irresistible, beyond human control, management, or predictability. The poem announces that the wind has come to blow over the stump. The wind indicates new possibility.
The poet commands, "Look—out of the symbol of a dried up stump, a green shoot, a shoot of Jesse, what was David's father.” Incredibly, out of the symbol of death comes life, newness, creation continuing. The poet sees a vision, a precious vision, of the coming day of the Lord when creation is healed, brutality gone, everything put right, old enemies reconciled.