In today's world, it is easy to lose focus during the holiday season. It is only December 2 and I am already writing this to pull ME back in! We get caught up in the sales, preparations for parties, exams, and for me, graduation. Is it bad to get excited about this stuff? Not necessarily. The problems arise when we make THEM the focus of the season.
Christ-mas.... the coming of Christ. I recent wrote a devotion for my church's advent devotion book and I think it pertains to this topic pretty closely. This devotion is based on Issaiah 11:1-9 which says,
"A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. 2The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. 3His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; 4but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. 5Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist, and faithfulness the belt around his loins. 6The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. 7The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. 9They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. "
Before the time of Jesus Christ, the world was in a sense of upheaval. Israelites, after being freed from the Egyptians and settling into their new lands, forgot God (Psalm 106:21) and believed that their hand and work had brought them their fruits and to this new land (Exod. 3: 7-8). As they continued on in their lives, all calls from God were ignored and they didn’t “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8)”. Even with warnings from God’s prophets, the Israelites still turned a blind eye to their deliverer. Through all of the turmoil and rejection, God never left his children. Isaiah 11:1-9 tells of a shoot that will rise from the stump of Jesse, bringing new life with it. This shoot will bring light into the world through the spirit, making all things good again.
Thankfully for the Israelites, this shoot is so much more than a twig coming out of stump. This shoot is a representation of Jesus Christ, himself. JESUS will come into the world and the SPIRIT of the LORD will rest on HIM. JESUS will not judge others by what he sees or hears, but by righteousness and justice. JESUS will strike the earth with the rod from his mouth and breath from his lips. The world will finally know PEACE.
We are not too different from the Israelites. Our focus has been put on the drama at work, trying to find new ways to pay the bills that don’t seem to stop pouring in, or maybe those exams that are not too far away. We have it in our heads that we have to do everything single-handedly and there is just no way out. We forget to say a quick prayer in the morning because we are so focused on what has to be done that day, and we are so exhausted at the end of the night that we just fall into bed without another thought. Just as the Israelites did, we are turning a blind eye to God. God won’t leave us though! In fact, he will even give us his one and only son, our LORD to help to guide us through the day. Through Jesus, just like the Israelites, we will find justice, mercy, and peace. If and when we live our lives through Jesus, we will find a way to make it through the day. Things may not always be perfect, but no matter what, we will always have Jesus Christ as a sign of God’s undying love for us- even when we do forget to say that little prayer before we run out the door to work.
During this Christmas season, remember that every twig, blade of grass (or pine straw), and every smile you see is another sign of God’s undying love for us. God loves us so much, that even in the midst of turmoil and rejection, he still sent us a shoot in the stump of Jesse to save us from ourselves. That shoot came in the form of a precious baby boy who changed the world then, and continues to do so now.
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