Life from a Rock
“And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.”
Matthew 3:9
As winter approaches, we see signs all around us that point to this seasonal reality. The barren trees, the frosted grass at dawn, the cold weather. Signs of life in nature are seemingly gone. There is a stillness and a silence. It seems like nothing is happening and everything is dormant or dead. Yet, something is happening. In the seemingly lifeless stillness, life is preparing to be born.
We hear the Prophet Isaiah say to the Israelites, who would soon be exiled, that “a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse.” Death will come and they will soon be exiled into a land that is not theirs because of their own unfaithfulness, but God promises life will also come and that they will one day return to the land He has promised their ancestors. When all that they saw was doom and gloom, Isaiah tells them that there will be life. It probably seemed impossible to them maybe because it is! How can a new shoot sprout from a stump? How can something dead bring about life? It is impossible. But not for God.
This shoot that Isaiah prophesied about is the One John the Baptist preached about and prepared for his entire life. The shoot that will sprout from the stump is the Lord, Jesus Christ, who will bring life out of death. The message of Isaiah and John is one and the same: there is hope that life will prevail, that life will come out of death, that what is impossible for us is not so for God. John tells the people that if God wanted He could even raise up descendant from a rock that He could bring life out of even what is lifeless. If we place our hope in God, life will come, even if we walk through the valley of the shadow of death and even if we are in a seemingly desperate and hopeless situation, life will come. Light will scatter the darkness. Hope will cast out despair. Life will prevail over death. In fact, it already has. By His death and resurrection, Jesus has already conquered death. In God is our hope, and it is hope that never fails.
