by Vic Thiessen
The lectionary reading for today comes from the book of Isaiah, the first ten verses of chapter 11. It’s a relatively familiar passage but it’s the kind of passage we tend to take for granted rather than giving it the deeper reflection it deserves. Having said that, I am not intending to do a thorough exegesis, but simply to offer my own reflections, with hopefully a few unique twists and turns. Read Isaiah 11:1-10.
When I read this passage a week ago, I was reminded of a U2 song I had just been listening to, “Peace on Earth” from the album All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
Not the most joyous of Christmas songs! In fact, it conveys, to me at least, a sense of hopelessness: Hope and history won’t rhyme, so what’s it worth, to say “peace on Earth”? And yet it was precisely its sense of hopelessness which made me think of this song when I read the passage in Isaiah. This passage was written at a time when the words written by Bono also described the situation in Judah. If we look back at the preceding chapters of Isaiah, we see that God is judging Judah for its many iniquities, especially its failure to do justice; to look after the poor and the oppressed.
As an example, let me read a few verses from the first half of Isaiah 1 and the first three verses of Isaiah 10 (read Isaiah 1:4,7,11,14-17; 10:1-3). The result of Judah’s failure is that its enemy (in this case, Assyria) will lay waste to the land of Judah. There will be nothing but stumps left. As Bono says, there weren’t many trees to begin with, and those that were there have been cut down and used as weapons of war. A lack of justice, of care for the needy, has led to war, destruction and desolation. This is the context of Isaiah 11 and, unfortunately, it is still the context of our lives today, as Bono reminds us. Failure to look after the Earth and its people leaves us still expecting nothing but war and devastation; a hopeless situation.
