Isaiah 11:1-9
The Light Isaiah Saw
One of the things I love most about the Christmas season is the almost palpable atmosphere of joy and hope it brings. Around the holidays, folks tend to look at the world in a more optimistic way and treat each other with a little more compassion and generosity. However, we all know in the back of our minds that our world is still broken and that injustice and violence continue to go on all around us.
Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming Messiah in today’s reading offers us a radical hope of change in our world, though. He envisions the Anointed One bringing vindication for the righteous, justice for the vulnerable, and an end to all enmity and struggle in God’s creation.
What many Christians so often forget, though, is that this is not simply a vision that we should sit around and wait for. Jesus has already brought the Kingdom of God to earth although it will not be fully realized until he comes again. As we are waiting for the Light this Advent, let’s join Christ in the redemptive Kingdom work he has already begun that the vision of Isaiah (and all the saints) might be more fully realized!
-Nick Dawson