November 30, 2025 Grounded & Growing: A Shoot from a Stump-- A Sign of Hope

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. We enter Advent by reflecting on Isaiah 11:1–9; Psalm 72:1–7, 12–19; and Luke 1:26–38 A Shoot from a Stump—A Sign of Hope. It’s been a long time since the last prophets from God have come and spoken to the people, 400 years. There have been political upheavals, making life hard, and God’s people often feel that the only thing that has happened is they’ve simply changed oppressors. What is happening with God’s promises? Will the Messiah ever come? Were the prophecies true? Is there any reason to hope? How about today? Is there reason for hope when times are dark? There is hope, both then and now. Out of a seemingly lifeless stump a shoot comes fruit; not a weak shoot, but one that bears fruit. An angel comes to Mary and announces the coming of the Messiah through her! This shoot is going to make all things right, a promise that still holds today. Will we hold on to the promise like Mary ?

Transcript

A Shoot from a Stump—A Sign of Hope

Isaiah 11:1–9, Psalm 72:1–7, 12–19, Luke 1:26–38

The church often turns to the prophet Isaiah in Advent. Isaiah comes during a difficult time in Judah, just before the conquest by Babylon, a time of unrest, injustice where the rich are getting richer and more powerful, the poor, widows, and oppressed are ignored, and compassion is hard to find. Isaiah warns of God’s judgment against his own rebellious people, but also to the all the nations that defy God. 

Psalm 72 is a prayer that reflects the desire of the people for a king whose reign will be shaped by justice and righteousness; the virtues of a faithful king, faithful to God and to his people. The Hebrew word ṣeḏeq, which is translated righteousness, probably comes from Arabic meaning ‘straightness.’ One main idea in the Old Testament’s idea of righteousness is relationship, both between God and man, and between man and man. Righteous is about promoting the well-being and peace of the community. For the prophets, righteousness includes the idea of helping the poor and needy. In terms of the relationship between God and men, righteousness points toward a correct relationship to the will of God, expressed and shaped by Israel’s covenant with God.

 Righteous action flows out of God’s election of Israel and according to his covenants. God is a righteous judge who acts for his people and upon whose righteousness his people depend on for deliverance and protection. Psalm 72 is praying for a righteous king, praying that God will send the promised Messiah king to bring freedom. In the time of Isaiah and the psalmist, God sees and hears the people that the rich and powerful fail to see, except as a means to grow their own power and wealth. For those looking, for a righteous king, for a Messiah, there seems to be little hope to hang onto. But the prophets keep pointing the people back to God, reminding them that the weak and needy are precious to him, and he hears their prayers for a king that will have God’s heart for them too. The hope for God’s people is that a king will come from the line of David, son of Jesus. Isaiah is looking ahead to a time when there will no longer be a king from the line of David on the throne, when it looks like David’s family tree has been cut down and only a stump is left. 

When you look at what’s going on today, when you watch the news, it can be easy to get pessimistic about life and even wonder, as Israel often did in the time of Isaiah, is there any reason to hold onto hope as Jesus still hasn’t returned, and it’s hard for so many today. The gap between the wealthy and poor continues to grow larger, so many corporations have lost any sense of social responsibility and are focused on making the greatest profit they can for their people, even if it’s on the back of the less fortunate. This week a new report came in that 25% of Canadians are suffering from food insecurity, meaning there are a lot of people going hungry, needing to access food banks to feed their families, where so many families are literally living from pay-cheque to pay-cheque, frightened of even one unexpected bill or sickness, while the very wealthy don’t seem to see or care. There are wars, rumours of war, the number of refugees in the world grows daily and more and more countries want no part of welcoming them in to help. Persecution and oppression occur around the world and our brothers and sisters in the faith often suffer greatly for following Jesus. As the French writer Jean-Baptiste Karr said, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

With defeat at the hands of the Babylonian empire coming close, Isaiah offers a burst of hope in the shoot from the stump, “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 the knowledge and 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, or decide by 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.” This shoot will do the two things that everyone wants from their leaders: with righteousness he will lead with compassion and care for the least among us, and punishment for the wicked. 

Isaiah is a prophet of hope, pointing the people to the promises of God that he will send a Messiah, to the coming of the Lord’s servant who will rescue them from both political and spiritual oppression. Isaiah points ahead to a shoot coming up; trusting that the seemingly dead stump’s roots are still filled with life, and a Branch will grow up, bearing fruit again. This Messiah is often referred to as the Lord’s servant, but unexpectedly, a suffering servant who will bring justice and rule in righteousness. 

The picture of a renewed creation where all of creation is at peace within itself, shalom at its greatest peace. There will be no more survival of the fittest, but instead peace and flourishing for all creatures and nature, predators and prey will sleep side by side in safety, a beautiful picture of what justice and righteousness looks like in the kingdom of God; relationships of shalom with all the meaning of this Hebrew word where there will be peace within creation, flourishing among all people and with all creatures, where there will be a building up rather than destruction, and the earth will know the Lord within a covenantal relationship of faithfulness. This image occurs repeatedly in Scripture: Ezekiel 34:25–27 “‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety. I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing.  I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them.”

The Bible closes with a picture of the renewed creation and the second advent when Jesus returns, Revelation 22:1–5 “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.”

From the prophets, God’s people experience 400 years of silence. But hope wasn’t dead, just as it’s not dead today. An angel comes to a young virgin in Nazareth, a small town in a small country under foreign rule and he tells the young girl Mary, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” Judah’s under Roman rule, things are hard, oppressors have come and gone, they were free for a time under the Maccabees, but that’s long gone. So-called Messiahs have come and gone, usually making things even harder for the people. Herod’s built a beautiful temple that rivals Solomon’s temple, but he’s cruel and unjust, only in it for himself. And now an angel comes with amazing news for Mary, “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. he will be great and will be called the Son of the Most-High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David.” Her son will be born through the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus, the holy one, will be called the “Son of God.” 

With the coming of the shoot from the stump of Jesse, this Branch has begun to gather people around him from all nations. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:10, God’s plan is “to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” In our world filled with failed flawed leaders, Jesus is returning to bring in a renewed kingdom of justice and righteousness under God, the king-child born of Mary, raised, and crucified in a small oppressed country and raised from the dead for our sin, and is returning to deliver the needy, defend the oppressed, and hold the wicked to account for their actions, for failing to care for the people. 

We are the body of Christ here, part of the already/not-yet kingdom of heaven. Until Jesus returns, we’re called to live out the values of justice and righteousness, to answer as Mary does, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Where are the places where we, as a church, as individuals, or as families be involved in acting justly, seeing and walking alongside the poor, the orphans, the widows, and foreigners among us, offering the hope of Christ to them, bringing in the here and now a bit of the new life found in Jesus?