Isaiah 11:1-10

The picture painted by Isaiah is a captivating one. A shoot from the stump of Jesse shall arise. This of course is the Messiah. that is why we are reading this passage if Isaiah in preparation for Christmas. We Christians see this as one of the Old Testament prophecies that was fulfilled when Jesus came.

This shoot of Jesse, the messiah, will usher in an age of Peace. This will not just be a peace between nations and between people. This will be a peace that spills over into the natural world. It will be a restoration of the tranquility and serenity of Eden itself.

Natural enemies like the wolf and the lamb and the lion and the calf will live with one another in peace. Even human children will not live in fear of snakes. All God's children and all God's creatures will live in perfect and eternal; peace under the rule of the Son of God!

The early American painting by Edward Hicks called "The Peaceable Kingdom" was an attempt to depict this blessed harmony. You can clearly see carnivores and herbivores, predator and prey living at peace with one another. You can also see children playing amongst the wild animals. All that is in the foreground. If you look in the background you can also see over to one side a group of European Americans living at peace with the Native Americans. Hicks painted a number of different versions. Some believe this one to be depicting the treaty between William Penn and the Native Americans in the colony of Pennsylvania.

Hicks actually painted his 61 versions of this picture between 1820 and 1849. William Penn is supposed to have made his treaty with the native American in the territory of Pennsylvania in 1682. Hicks was a native of Pennsylvania himself and a Quaker. So we can understand his attraction to the event. It seemed to exemplify the ideal of people being at peace with one another.

But there is a tragic irony here and it was probably not lost on Hicks. Think what was happening in relations between Native Americans and the United States in the early 1800's when Hicks was painting. During the 1830's tens of thousands of Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, and Seminole were forcibly relocated to what is now Oklahoma. These forced relocations are often referred to as the trail of tears. Thousands died. In the case of the Cherokee it is estimated that 4,000 of the 15,000 who were relocated died during the march.

How can we believe in the peaceable kingdom in a world like that? How could Hicks paint a peaceable kingdom in the age he lived in? How can we believe in a peaceable kingdom in a world where people kill each other over religion? How can we believe in a peaceable kingdom in a world where people are killed because of their ethnic background? How can believe in a peaceable kingdom in a world where children cannot play in their own yards and where the elderly live in fear of crime?

Well how could Isaiah believe in it in his day? Israel was facing destruction and their own trail of tears and they were carried off into captivity. Isaiah foresaw their return to Israel but still they would live in the shadow of the Egyptians and the Persians. How could he believe in an age of peace?

Well you have to back to the shoot. That shoot from the stump of Jesse. You see the kingdom of peace will not come through human endeavors and treaties not matter how good they are. It can only be established by God himself. Only the Messiah, the anointed one of God and bring about this peaceable kingdom that Isaiah and Hicks and we yearn for.

The peaceable kingdom has not dawned yet. But there is hope. That is why we celebrate Christmas. At Christmas the love and peace of God came in human form. And Jesus the Messiah can bring about the age of peace.

Only Jesus can bring peace to the human heart and peace to the world. The peaceable kingdom has not happened yet. But because Christ came we know that it will come.

That is how we can believe in a peaceable kingdom is a world of violence and injustice and hatred. We can believe in the kingdom of peace because Jesus the Prince of Peace has come. Because the shoot of the stump of Jesse has arrived we know that the rest of the prophesy will come true.

Back then there was this guy name John who lived in the woods. He would live off the land. He'd eat insects and roots and whatever he could get his hands on. He dressed the same way he ate. He wore whatever he could get his hands on. Usually it was some old blue jeans and an oily sweatshirt that someone threw away.

Some people thought old Johnny had a few screws loose upstairs. Just seeing what he ate is enough to make you wonder. But some people thought John was special. They thought he had religion. Not like the people in the big steepled churches, but the real thing. They thought he was holy or something; that God was using him for something special. He was like Elijah that they had read about in their Bibles.

Every now and then John would come out of the woods to the river near town and he would preach. And all sorts of people would come out to see him. Even the mobsters and prostitutes and moonshiners and drug dealers would come to see him. And when they did he would give them some of that old time religion and tell them to repent for God was on his way. And a bunch of them repented and were baptized.

Every now and then a bunch of Baptists and Methodists who had just got out of a prayer meeting would come by. And they would pretend to believe what he was saying. They would nod there heads and stare at all the "sinners" in the crowd and whisper to each other. Some of them would even confess their sins and let John baptize them.

But when John saw a bunch of those religious people in the crowd he would let them have it. He'd say something like, "You Son's of snakes." Who told you that you were guilty of anything? You're so high and mighty. Show us that you really mean what you say.

Now don't try to say, "Oh I have been a member of First Church all my life." Or, "I am a charter member of the Avenue Church." I tell you God could make charter members out of these rocks here. Really repent, because God is coming to cut off and burn all the dead branches.

You may think I am something with all these people coming out to see me and be baptized. But I am nothing. The one God is sending after me is greater than me. And he will give all believers his holy power. And the unbelievers will be burned up like sawdust.

You offspring of a Rattler. You know I wouldn't talk to you like that. But John the Baptist would. When he saw the Sadducees and Pharisees, the religious folk, he called them a brood of vipers; daughters and sons of snakes. I imagine he would talk the same to us today. That means all of us, myself included.

You see John's basic message was, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Now "repent" doesn't mean to just fell sorry for something. It literally means to change ones frame of mind. The Greek word for "repent" is "metanoeo." "Meta-" means change, and "noeo" means mind. It is closely related to "metamorpho," a change of form from which we get the word "metamorphosis" like what happens to a butterfly. So the kind of change John is calling for is a radical change. He was saying change you souls in the same way that a caterpillar changes into a butterfly.

Now John preached his message of repentance to the sinners. And everyone knows that prostitutes and criminals need to change their lifestyle in a radical way. But John preached repentance with more venom to the religious people. People like you and me. He was more forceful with the religious folk because too often we think we don't need to change.

If you don't think that religious people need to repent and change, just look at some religious people. Religious people can be some of the most prideful and arrogant people. They can be some of the most spiteful and unforgiving people. If having an unforgiving spirit is a sin than church folk are on the 10 most wanted sinners list. Church people have taken hate and prejudice and raised it to an art form. No wonder John called us snakes, some of us have venom in our bites.

What John preached was important, but why he preached it is equally important. He preached repentance because the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. Jesus, the Son of God, was coming. And he was bringing the Holy Spirit and God's judgment. So repentance was a way of getting ready to receive the blessings Jesus was bringing. And a way to escape the judgment that was coming too!

John was preparing people to be blessed by Jesus' teachings and blessings and salvation. But the beginning of that preparation is repentance. To be blessed by God we have to realize a need for change in us. We need to be willing to drastically alter who we are and the ways we think. Then and only then can we receive the blessings of Jesus.

This message of repentance is as much for life long church goers as it is for those who have never darkened a church door. Being a member of a church or merely attending, even serving as an officer, does not save us. Only the change that God has wrought in our hearts saves us. It is true that God changed you when you first gave your life to Christ and God blessed you with salvation. But God calls us to continue to grow and change, so we must constantly be repenting, changing our minds with God's help.

I will not call you a brood of vipers this morning, but I will emphasize the need for repentance just as John did. Repentance is not just for the prostitutes and drug dealers. It is for religious people too.

John warned people that the Kingdom was coming and they need to prepare for it. The beginning of that preparation is repentance. Repentance is that change of mind that allows God to radically alter us into the image that God chooses.

Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. That Kingdom will bring blessings to those who are ready for it, and destruction to those who aren't.

Something's coming! I'm not sure what it is, but I think it's coming. I mean I know that it's coming. I can feel it! Can't you? And, it's big! I know that! It's really big! It's big like God. I guess you could say that God is coming.

And we have to get ready for it! It's almost here and we're not ready! It's big and if we're not ready it will wipe us out. But if we hurry we'll be ready. You better start living right and stop sinning or it'll get you.

It's coming and it will change everything. It'll turn the world upside-down! It'll be like nothing you've ever seen. Nothing you've seen can hold a candle to it. It will be like a blaze of fire lighting up the night and burning up the night.

It's coming! It's almost here. I can feel it! Can't you?

That is how I sometimes imagine that John the Baptist must have sounded to the people of his day. I am sure many of them thought he was crazy. He lived in the wilderness and ate insects and wore animal skins. He also went around telling people to change because God was coming. I think many of the people who came out to see him came for the show. Many just wanted to watch this religious lunatic to see what he would do next. So the religious folk, the Pharisees and Sadducees came out. They didn't come to honor God. They came to laugh and be entertained.

These religious leaders were like a man I heard of one time. He went to the doctor for and exam and the doctor told him he had high blood pressure. He was a young man and should have a long life ahead of him. If he took care of himself, if he ate right and exercised, he would live to a ripe old age. But the doctor told him that if he didn't he would die young of a heart attack or stroke. The man laughed at the doctor because he felt fine and he died young.

In a sense John was the doctor and the religious leaders were the young man. John was warning them about their spiritual health. God's age was coming and if they didn't take care of their spiritual health they would miss it. They would be spiritually dead by the time the Messiah arrived. They just laughed at him and instead of accepting their Messiah when he arrived, they rejected him.

But what John was saying was true. The Kingdom of Heaven was at hand, and the people did need to repent. John told them that the coming of the Kingdom would be bigger than anything they had ever seen. As Jews they had experienced the rituals of cleansing or baptism that he and the temple priests administered. But when God's anointed one, the Messiah, came it would be a baptism in God's Spirit. He also told them that the Messiah would bring salvation to the faithful, but he would also bring destruction to the wicked.

Some people heeded John's warning. They were baptized by him to prepare themselves for the arrival of God's chosen one. Prostitutes and publicans, tax collectors and thieves and soldiers. And John told them to do more than just wash their bodies. He told them to clean their lives of evil ways, for the fire coming from heaven will burn up all that is wicked.

In fact, their repentance should have been a sign to others that what John was saying was true. It's been said that a leopard cannot change its spots. That's a way of saying people can't change their ways. And it's true! Humans by themselves cannot change. Yet these people were making drastic changes. It had to be something from outside that was doing it. Maybe God! Maybe the power of God was really at hand?

Something's coming. I can feel it. Can't you. I can't approach Christmas without remembering how I felt as a child. My mother played the organ. I still have her organ. She had even played for a small church at one time. But around Christmas she would always play "Silent Night." As a small child I can remember her playing it. I didn't know times or seasons and I didn't even know the words that went with that melody but I recognized it and I knew something was coming.

It was only a feeling! Not even an idea or a concept. It didn't yet have a name. But I knew something was coming. It wasn't until I saw a Christmas tree or a Santa Clause that I knew it was Christmas that was coming.

But still behind the words "Christmas is Coming" was the feeling. A feeling or warmth and hope. A good feeling that was not about getting presents or eating cookies. It is like my favorite Christmas story character the Grinch. The Grinch thought he could steal Christmas by taking all the trappings. So he went down to Whoville and stole all their Christmas decorations and gifts. But the next morning the Whos were still singing. Christmas came just the same. "Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Christmas doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas - perhaps - means a little but more."

I guess you could say that the Kingdom of Heaven is like dinner on the stove. Have you ever arrived home while dinner was cooking. And the aroma fills the air. It smells so good you can almost taste it. And you say "What smells so good?" because you can't quite tell what it is. You can sense it and tell that it is almost done but you can't quite tell what it is.

You know we live in a time when people are beginning to become interested in the spiritual aspects of life again. People are seeking something more to life. They are looking for meaning and joy, spiritual wholeness and direction. It is like they are looking for something they can smell and almost taste, but they don't know what it is. Tragically, many of them turn to eastern religions or contemporary philosophies.

Well something's cooking. And the spiritual aroma fills the air. It is so thick that you can almost taste it. But what is it? It's the Kingdom of Heaven and it's at hand.

Something's coming. And it's different. It's big but not in the way the world counts bigness. It is of a different quality of greatness. The world will think it is small and insignificant. The world would write off the birth of one homeless boy as unimportant and meaning nothing.

Something's coming! Can't you feel it? I'm not talking about December 25th. It's not a celebration of commercialism. It's not even the celebration of the birth of a religious leader. It's more than that!

Something's coming - can't you feel it? It's God. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! Are you ready? God is in our midst and he will be revealed to you! Are you ready? Something's coming! You better get ready!