A Green Branch from a Dead Stump

(from Isaiah 11)

Do you know what a stump is?

It is what's left
when a great tree is cut down.
The branches are gone, and the leaves,
and all the cool green shade.
Just a low, dead place in the ground
where something tall and strong
used to be.

The people of God
had become like that.
A family tree, chopped down.
Their kings were gone.
Their cities lay broken.
And the world all around them
felt sharp, and frightened, and unsafe.

Maybe you know that feeling.
When the world seems too big and too broken.
When you wish that nothing,
nothing,
could ever hurt you again.

God knew that wish.
He had felt it for his children
longer than you can imagine.
Long before, he had promised a light
to people walking in the dark.
Now he made the promise
small and green and alive.

Out of the stump, he said,
a little shoot will grow.
A tender branch,
from the very place that looked dead.

And on that branch
my Spirit will rest:
the Spirit of wisdom and gentle strength,
the Spirit of knowing me,
and loving what is right.

He will not judge by what his eyes can see,
or by the loud things people say.
He will lift up the poor.
He will be gentle with the small.
And the breath of his mouth
will undo every cruel and crooked thing.

Then God said something
so beautiful
the people could hardly hold it in their minds.

In that day, he said,
the wolf will lie down beside the lamb.
The leopard will rest with the baby goat.
The lion will eat straw, like a cow.
And a little child,
a child no bigger than you,
will lead them all,
unafraid.

A baby will play
right by the snake's dark hole,
and nothing,
nothing,
will harm her.

No one will hurt.
No one will destroy.
Not anywhere
on all of God's holy mountain.

Picture it:
a whole world
where you never have to be afraid again.
Where the scary things lie down soft as kittens.
Where every hurt is healed,
and every frightened heart can finally rest.

That little green branch
was a promise of a person.
A child who would come
from that chopped-down family,
up out of the dead-looking place.
Jesus.

He is the gentle King
who lifts up the small
and undoes the cruel,
crooked things.

When he came the first time,
the branch began to grow.
The promise started coming true,
right here in our world,
right there in him.

And it is still growing,
green and tender and alive,
pushing up
out of the place that looked dead,

until the day he comes again,
and the whole wide world becomes
that holy mountain,
where the wolf lies down with the lamb
and no one,
no one,
is ever harmed.

It has already begun.
And the little green branch
keeps growing
toward that wonderful day.