Today I read Isaiah 11:1 – 5. The first verse stuck with me throughout the day … “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.”
I’ve been thinking all day about the imagery. A stump, broken … a reminder of a once stately tree. But no longer with any beauty to speak of – an unlikely source of life. Yet, a shoot sprouts from its roots, where life still runs deep.
A Tender Shoot
Isaiah comes back again to that same imagery in Chapter 53.
“He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.” Again, an unlikely source of life – “dry ground.”
The Hebrew for a shoot is “netser.” Typically a branch sprouting from a stump, from dry ground would be worthless, it’s of little use.
Some scholars believe that netser is the Hebrew origin of Nazareth – the town in which Jesus grew up. Those scholars say that Nazareth was an insignificant town, judged to be out in the sticks. Those that lived there to be insignificant as well. Recall that Nathaniel asks blatantly, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
Can any good thing come out of a stump, out of dry ground? With it’s humble, unlikely source of life, this shoot, this branch will bear fruit!
A Root
Paul says in Romans 15, “Accept one another [Jews and Gentiles], then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” He uses Isaiah’s passage as support for our unity. “In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples, the nations will rally to Him.”
John in The Revelation (22:16) makes clear who this “root of Jesse” is … “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”
Today I’m thankful that our Creator God planned our salvation from the beginning of time; He established a peoples, a lineage from which the Savior would be born.
