by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM December 8, 2024
Of all the beautiful and rich Scriptures that visit with us during the Advent season, few speak more powerfully to me than this one from Isaiah 11:1:
On that day, a shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse,
and from his roots a bud shall blossom.
The Message Bible phrases and capitalizes the text a bit more differently:
A green Shoot shall sprout from Jesse’s stump,
from his roots a budding Branch.
It’s possible some of my attraction to the text is grounded in my gardener’s heart that so rarely finds a shriveled plant beyond redeeming. A drenching in water, some clipping of dead leaves, a relocating to gentle sunlight, and often such tender care and attention are all that’s needed to reverse desiccation and near death.
Oh, but it’s even more than that. It’s the life force. It’s the call to greenness and hope that cannot, will not, be denied. As we imagine the prophet Isaiah speaking to us, can we also imagine a life force, the grace of the Holy One, pulsing and at work even when all outside appearances speak of dryness, dying, decay? Even when dreams have been deferred or have dried up? Even when our best efforts, our passion for justice, our hopes for a more tender and inclusive world seem to be permanently mired in an inability to move forward? Can we imagine grace at work even when all we can see is the dead end of failure?
When our lives seem unfinished, incomplete, or stuck in ways that lean toward despair, that might be exactly the time we’re most in need of revisiting Isaiah 11:1. The Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann offers us rich insights into the hope of this text. He notes that for Isaiah, the stump represents any closed-off possibility, anything that may have failed, collapsed, or ended in despair. The prophet insists that outward appearances are never the ultimate or last word. He imagines that the Holy One can and will raise up new life where none seems possible.
May Isaiah’s prophecy trumpet hope for us as well. For all who may be longing for encouragement, who may be searching for signs of hope, who may be near desperation over what’s unfolding in their lives or in the lives of those they love, may the words of Isaiah enable us to see and move beyond stuck and closer to the fullness of audacious hope.
I leave you with this prayer I wrote for a 2018 Advent reflection booklet, According to Your Word:
Come, O Holy One!
To the dry and withered landscape, to the thirsting root, to the parched desert, come!
To the lonely and severed branch, to the shriveled stump that longs for green,
to the broken heart that cannot imagine wholeness, come!
When we doubt our belovedness, when our future stands uncertain,
when our lives feel unfinished and incomplete, come!
Even as we wait to celebrate your birth,
Come, O Holy One,
green and bud in us this day.
Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a plant that’s green, growing, or budding (or one that’s not!) or an image of the same.
How does this plant speak to your present state of the heart?
Name your deepest desire for flourishing.
Ask the Holy One for the Advent gift of new life for yourself and for our waiting world.
Featured Image: Lee Sosby
NOTE:
Please remember all Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), as we celebrate together the feast of the Immaculate Conception on December 9 (usually it’s observed December 8 but the holy day has been moved because of the Second Sunday of Advent).
December 13-15:
Please hold in your prayer all who will be part of an Advent Guided Retreat Weekend that I’ll be leading at Villa Maria by the Sea, Stone Harbor, NJ. Thank you!
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