2025-12-07 Advent 2

Scripture Readings

Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen!

Growing up over the years, we had both real and artificial Christmas trees. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Both look splendid when they are decorated. Real trees smell absolutely amazing when they warm up to room temperature. Artificial trees can be used over and over again and have no sap. And if we learned anything from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, artificial trees generally don’t house any renegade squirrels either! But there is just something about a real tree, going to the lot and picking out the perfekt Tannenbaum. I remember one year when I was a kid we went and made the pilgrimage to the tree lot and found this big, glorious Christmas tree. It smelled fantastic and looked even better. So we loaded it up in the old Suburban and brought it home. We set it up in the living room and let it warm up before decorating it. It sat there in its stand for about an hour and a half or so. Then, when we went back to look at it, behold! Almost every single needle fell off! It was like Charlie Brown descended into our house and personally cursed our poor Christmas tree! And guess who had to vacuum up that enormous pile of pine needles?! … It was probably Mom. We re-loaded the Christmas tree - now a Christmas trunk - back into the truck and took it back to the tree lot. Thankfully they exchanged it with minimal explaining. And that, dear friends, is how the Christmas festivities were saved, way back in 1987!

The Scripture readings for the Second Sunday in Advent are chock full of tree connections. From Isaiah we heard “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (11:1). That sounds like my 1987 Christmas tree debacle! C’mon kids, lets decorate the veritable Christmas stump! I don’t think we are going to start any hot new Christmas trends with that one. So what is Isaiah talking about? He has the reputation of being the “fifth” Gospel writer because he talks about Jesus so much. And this is truly a Messianic prophecy of Christ our Lord.

Now when you think about a tree stump, you think mainly about the tree that used to be there. Something happened to that tree. Did it blow down in the Saskatchewan wind? Did some industrious Canadian beaver get at it? Was it purposely chopped down? And this last point is the one that Isaiah is making. The Dynasty of King David, the family tree of Jesse has been cut down in exile and defeat. Once described as a mighty cedar (Ezek 17), it is now a lifeless stump. The people of God were cut down for their iniquity and rebellion against God and His word to them. The sinful nature of all humanity stemming from the tree in the garden of Eden, rearing its ugly head. But we see here not only God’s word of law and judgement, we also see that God is not finished with His people too. From this dead-looking stumpy remnant springs new, tender life. This is resurrection language before the resurrection: a promise that God’s covenant with David (2 Sam 7:12-16) will be fulfilled in an unexpected, humble way. As we heard last Sunday, the Messiah is not a military conqueror riding into town on a warhorse. The donkey at our Lord’s triumphal entry was the first clue. Isaiah says the Messiah is a fragile shoot — born in Bethlehem as a baby, raised in Nazareth, eventually “despised and rejected” (Isa 53:2-3) on the life giving tree of the cross.

What else does Isaiah tell us about our Messiah? In verse 2 he drops these six attributes with a seventh gluing it all together. “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord” (11:2). The Holy Spirit rests upon Him. We see this clearly when our Lord Jesus is Baptized in the Jordan river, as the Holy Spirit descends upon Him. He has wisdom and understanding that He may rule over the people with discernment. He has counsel and might to give perfect guidance and execute justice. He has knowledge and the fear of the Lord, that reverential awe that Proverbs tells us is the beginning of all true wisdom (9:10). And we see in verse 4 that His weapons are not physical like some kind of earthly king. “He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked” (11:4). His judgment will destroy evil. And what is the consequence of destroying evil?

Peace. The consequence is peace. Isaiah paints this picture for us in the remainder of our reading. Mortal enemies like wolves and lambs, leopards and goats, calves and lions, cows and bears, little kids and poisonous snakes - they all live together in harmony. “They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (11:9). Heavenly peace will be the result of His reign. This is precisely why one of the Advent themes is peace. It shows us God’s gracious and merciful heart that brings us peace in the Messiah. Through His sacrifice on the cross, our sins are forgiven. Through our Baptism we are washed clean and made part of God’s family. In Holy Communion, the life and salvation in, with and under the medicine of immortality gives us peace with God and with each other. And, it points us ahead to supreme and ultimate heavenly peace that awaits those who trust in this Messiah. “In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious” (11:10).

Now the other interesting thing with our readings today is that St. Paul references this last verse from Isaiah as well. He writes “And again Isaiah says, ‘The root of Jesse will come, even he who arises to rule the Gentiles; in him will the Gentiles hope’” (15:12). It’s not exactly the same because St. Paul is referencing the Greek Septuagint version instead of the Hebrew that our translation is using. But for Paul’s emphasis the Septuagint version is a better fit. He is making the point that the roots of the stump, despite being of the Jews are not only for the Jews. The Gentiles, the nations, the non-Jews - us - we will look to the Messiah with the same hope and for the same heavenly peace.

As we circle back to the Jews, we see John the Baptizer in our Gospel reading. He’s out in the desert, preachin’ up a storm, baptizin’ the masses. “Prepare the way of the Lord” He cries. Get ready. Wake up. Repent. Confess your sins. Then, all of a sudden, look who shows up from head office. It’s the ‘Pedigree Pals,’ the Pharisees and the Saduccees. Even they have come all this way to see what the commotion is about. John gives them a super warm welcome: “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Do you ever get the feeling that John the Baptizer never read that book “How to win friends and influence people?” Ah, but he doesn’t care about making friends. He’s not there to be the valedictorian. He’s not there to be a Justin Bieber celebrity. He doesn’t care about your safe spaces or your feelings. He’s wearing the prophet’s mantle, calling out sin and encouraging everyone towards repentance. It’s a real-deal, sobering message of how you actually get peace with God. No pretending.

“Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (MT 3:8-9). Boom! Johnny drops the hammer of God on the Pedigree Pals! Your salvation ain’t based on bloodline boys! Just being born a Jew doesn’t matter for squat. You need repentance. You need confession of sins. You need to warsh away your sins in Baptism. You need to bear the fruit of the Spirit in keeping with that repentance. “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (MT 3:10). Uh oh! Looks like your stump of Jesse isn’t destined for glory without the new shoot of the Messiah, the guy Who “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (MT 3:11).

It’s very much an image of repentance. Think about the last time you took a hike in a forest. You notice you’ve got living trees and dead trees and everything in between. If you get a forest that is chock full of dead trees, what happens? A little lightning. A cigarette butt. Kids with a magnifying glass. You get the drift. It only takes a spark. If you’re the Federal Government of Canada you just sit back and watch Jasper burn to the ground. Get the marshmallows! But on the other hand, if you’re a sane person, you would work diligently to cut down all the dead trees and haul them away so you don’t turn the entire forest into one big tinder box. You selectively remove the old, dead rot so that new healthy trees can grow and the forest can flourish. This is repentance. You cut away everything that is dead so the good can thrive.

This is how we embrace the Advent Peace our Saviour brings us. We cut off within ourselves all sin, vice, malice, and evil, cutting it all away so that the fruit of the Spirit can grow. This is how the old roots of Adam and Eve are replaced with the new shoot of Jesus our Messiah. Don’t fall into the trap of the Pedigree Pals. Don’t try and rely on roots without fruits. Rather let the Advent Axe fall on your unfruitful ways, that Christ’s reign of peace might sprout anew in your hearts and minds. Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!