Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Nine Lessons of Christmas Meditations: 5. A Bringer of Peace

Reading 4: Isaiah 11: 1–3a, 4a, 6–9

Isa 11:6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them

Context: The Lesson header reads, “A peace that Christ will bring is foreshown” which is a good summary of the second half of these verses, but they must be seen in the context of the first four verses. But remember what has gone before in the first three readings – the Fallen world with a problem, a problem that God has in mind from the start. And then there was a person who would ‘fight' Satan and his works and overcome, a person in the family tree of Abraham, a person who will become a ruler over a kingdom without end, a ruler called God. We must not forget this context, part of “the development of the loving purposes of God” being rolled out in these nine readings.

The Reading : We should note in the reading that it leaves out v.3b ‘how' this man works – not by human intellect – and also v.4b the judgment aspect of his work. We assume this is because those who set up these verses wanted to emphasise the key element in the light of all that had gone before, the light that this one will bring that was referred to before, that will result in him bringing peace to the tumultuous earth.

The Man – his nature:   This fourth reading starts, “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.” (v.1) Jesse was the father of David and his family referred to as a tree stump, will bring forth a branch. Then comes the nature of this one referred to as a Branch: “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—  the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord — and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.” (v.2,3a) Perhaps we may summarise this as ‘this person will be filled with the Spirit of the Lord in every way, with a heart that is all out for God'.

The Man – his activity:   So much for his nature, what about his activity? “with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.” (v.4a) This person is going to be concerned for the needy and the poor and all his actions will be right in God's sight (righteous) and justice (what is right and fair) will be the basis on which he makes decisions. Now this passage does not speak about him being a ruler but the fact that he will come doing these things implies he is a ruler bringing his will upon the earth, his will which is to care for the poor and needy who are suffering because it is a fallen world. Isn't that why people are poor and needy? Because it is a fallen world whereby individuals make a mess of their own lives or other people oppress their lives or, at the very least, do not help when they see needs.

The Man – his fruit: Now verse 1 concluded with “a Branch will bear fruit”. The fruit of this work of ministering to the poor and bringing justice is shown in the following very graphic description: “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra's den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper's nest.” (v.6-8) In the previous prophecies in Isaiah, there has been mention of a child and that continues twice here. Whether this is figurative or will literally come about with the advent of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1) only time will tell. If it is figurative it is still a beautiful picture of peace and harmony as we might imagine it was when God first created the earth. It is all summed up in the final verse of the reading, “They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord    as the waters cover the sea.” (v.9) It is a place of peace and security, filled with the presence of God.

The Lessons: Again we must remind ourselves, the object of these studies is to ask what these readings teach us. If we fail to do this, we leave these ‘Lessons' as romanticised words jammed in between a lot of carols, the packing to build up this beautiful composition – but it will be no more than that!

Something More: The first thing these verses tell us is that on God's heart, God's plan if you like, there is a strategy that is working towards an end goal. What we experience at the moment is not it; it is merely the vehicle that carries us towards the end goal. In the big picture there are three stages: Creation – which was perfect, the Fall – which we experience now and is far from perfect because of our sin, and the Restoration of all things, the new heaven and new earth which will be made perfect again. The lesson is that we may have hope while we live in this fallen, less-than-perfect world, that there is something better yet to come which we will be part of.

Brought by a Man: The second thing these verses tell us is that God was going to use a man to bring change to the life on earth, that will eventually culminate in the winding up of the present and bringing in of the new. Linked to that, or flowing on from that, is the teaching that we have picked up before, that God will now use you and me, individuals within His plan, that He is working out towards that end goal. It is an amazing truth that although on occasion God does intervene in the affairs of mankind sovereignly, much of the time He prefers to involve us. Remember the lesson: He wants to use you and me in His plan.

The classic case of this has to be Moses, where the Lord said He had “seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land”, which all sounded wonderful until He said, “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Ex 3:7-10) He uses US as part of the answer to the problem. Never run away from that!

Historic Context: We might also add a third thing here, that it is clear that the Messiah was not only merely a human being (Gen 3), not merely a member of Abraham's family (Gen 22) but also a member of Jesse's family tree, through David. There is a strong family tree context here which says to us, that today you and I live in a stream of history. The world around us is like it is because of history, what has already happened (which, I suggest, behooves us to learn about it, how we got to this point!) and in a large measure we are like we are because of a) our family genes and b) our upbringing and experiences. Having said that, we have a free will and these things do not MAKE us behave like we do, they only prod us in that direction, but we can choose with the grace and power of God to be different. Serious lessons!

Goal determining Process: A fourth lesson: we are living out a life-process but we've just been shown God's end goal – peace on earth – and so while living in the process, although we're not at the end, nevertheless, working for peace should be within our present goals (Mt 5:9), bringing peace within our families, peace in our colleges, peace in our workplace, peace wherever we are, and that will require a lot of prayer, grace and wisdom, but all those are available with His help. He wants it, so let's receive it and work for it.