From dawn 'til high noon
Commentary
The pericopes for this Sunday challenge us to think about the difficult theological tension between the kingdom that has already arrived and the kingdom that is yet to come. As we examine the three pericopes for this Sunday we see even in their content the paradox of the kingdom. It is a matter of anticipation as well as a matter of celebration because in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the new time -- God's new day -- has indeed begun; its dawn has started. What we wait for is "high noon."
The classic movie by that title indicates that the morning can be filled with tension and trouble. Not only do external forces present the threat, but the threat expected at noon must be faced with little help from people normally trustworthy. While we must be careful against following Gary Cooper down the road of the rugged individualist, his role for the movie does indeed reflect the feeling of many folks forsaken along the way. There are many challenges to face before riding off with the Bride after noon has arrived.
Isaiah 11:1-10
This vision of the Book of Isaiah is once more a portrayal of salvation inasmuch as it depicts for us the reign of God to come. In particular, the vision emphasizes the Messianic rule and the results of that rule to which the people of Israel look in hope.
Perhaps we can best understand this pericope if we look first at the last two verses of chapter 10. There in the midst of Isaiah's commission to preach judgment on Jerusalem, the prophet announced that the Lord will lop the boughs with terrifying power, cutting down one tree after another. It is in light of that imagery of the trees being felled that our pericope can be understood; a shoot shall come from the stump of Jesse.
The theological problem posed here is that God had promised in 2 Samuel 7 that a Davidic king would always reign on Jerusalem's throne. Can it be that the tree of Jesse itself -- David's father -- will be annihilated? Where is the hope for the people of Israel if they cannot count on the promise of God to maintain on the throne a descendant of David?
Isaiah is confident and hopeful. A shoot -- a descendant -- shall come from the stump of Jesse, and on this descendant will fall the sevenfold gift of the spirit. All of the expressions here indicate that this is one who is wise. One will recall Solomon, when he had his opportunity to have anything he wanted, requested "a wise and discerning mind" so that he might govern the people of Israel (1 Kings 3:9, 12). Since Solomon was obviously the first descendant of David in this promised dynasty, we can see immediately the connections in our verses to the promises of God.
Verses 3b-5 indicate the function of the Davidic king to come in this messianic age. He will do what all kings were called to do -- that is to judge the poor with righteousness and decide for the meek of the earth with equity. These functions are part of the job description of Davidic kings (see 1 Kings 3:16ff; 7:7). The Royal Psalms, especially 72:4, point out that the responsibility of the king is to establish justice, and in Psalm 45:7 establishing justice for the poor in righteousness is a significant function for a Davidic king. Protecting the poor and the oppressed is in fact the work of God (see Psalm 9:9; Proverbs 22:22-23; 23:10-11). This ideal Davidic king to come will judge not on the basis of eyewitness accounts or hearsay but will establish justice for the poor and for the meek of the earth.
"He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked." Here we have an interesting dilemma. One would expect the lines of poetry to contain all synonyms, but looking at line 1 ("the earth") we find that it is not parallel to line 2 ("the wicked"). That would indicate that something is wrong. The suggestion is that the Hebrew word has been confused for another word. Instead of 'eretz, meaning "earth," we should read 'ariz, which means "ruthless" (cf. Job 15:20 and 27:13). It is, therefore, not the earth that is to be smitten but the ruthless because they are oppressors of the poor. The elimination of these evil ones will be part of the role of the Messianic king in the kingdom to come.
The clothing this king wears -- righteousness and faithfulness around his waist -- will be similar to the righteousness and justice that form the foundation for the throne of God (see Psalm 97:2; 99:4). To our ears righteousness and faithfulness sound like quite separate qualities, and the reader of this pericope might wonder how they fit together in the same verse. The primary interpretive context here is the parallelism of the two words that indicates they mean essentially the same thing. Righteousness in the Old Testament often refers to the acts of a person that fulfill the obligations of a relationship. In that sense, righteousness and faithfulness or fidelity express the same quality, and both make sense within the relationship called a covenant.
Verses 6-9 depict what the kingdom -- over which the Davidic king, who is endowed with the spirit and executing justice -- will look like. It is the picture of universal peace and harmony that has become the subject of many paintings throughout the centuries. The description here indicates the contrast between sight and vision. In our present experience wolves like nothing better than to devour a lamb. A leopard likewise will do the same with a kid. In the kingdom to come, however, wolves and lambs, leopards and kids will live together peacefully, even sleep side by side. When we look again at the parallelism, we quickly notice that there are two animals connected by a verb. When we come to verse six, however, we have three animals and no verb. "The calf and the lion and the fatling together." Without a verb who knows what they were doing together. The Dead Sea scrolls manuscript of Isaiah shows us how to read the line correctly: "a calf and a lion shall feed together, and a little child shall lead them." That reading enables us to read the verse as similar in style to those preceding it.
The imagery of the child playing over the hole of the poisonous snake in verse eight is a fantastic image and again represents vision over sight. The present experience is best illustrated with Genesis 3:14-15, where hostility describes the attitude between humans and snakes. Isaiah's vision of the kingdom to come reverses the situation that resulted from human sinfulness.
Verse nine continues with the phrase "they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain." The holy mountain of the Lord is the one on which the Temple stands. That mount called Zion in most of the Old Testament will be full of the knowledge of the Lord. Certainly "knowledge" must be understood in the biblical sense -- an intimate experience with God rather than an intellectual awareness of God's existence. With that kind of intimacy and relationship with God, all the rest can be explained. Because of the reconciliation of people to God in the new kingdom to come, all the rest of God's creatures will live together in harmony.
The imagery of verses 6-9 is almost identical to the vision in Isaiah 65, particularly verses 17-25, the vision about the new heaven and new earth (vv. 17-22). There the images of peace and harmony portray the finishing touches to the masterpiece of a new creation. Here the images bring to conclusion the portrayal of the messianic reign to come.
Verse 10 is another expression of the Day of the Lord where the one who is to come from the root of Jesse shall serve as a sign for all peoples. Of his dwelling place, Isaiah 11:10 writes it shall be glorious. A better translation would read, "His resting place shall be glorious." The expression is used often in the Old Testament to refer to Mount Zion or for the land of Israel itself. This is not simply a spot to dwell but a resting place of stability and security.
The vision of the Messianic kingdom expressed a profound hope for the people of Israel during uncertain, even terrifying, times in their history. That hope in what the Lord would bring to pass enabled them to work through the uncertain morning in anticipation of high noon.
Romans 15:4-13
Although our pericope is plucked from chapter 15, it is important for a moment to look back to Romans 14 where Paul expresses the kind of "life in the light" which would be important for the mutual support of the Christian community. He starts that chapter by indicating that the congregation in Rome should welcome the person who is weak in faith. As Paul continues through the chapter he develops the means of mutual upbuilding, and comments on the need to refuse passing judgment on one another. When we reach chapter 15, Paul indicates we ought to bear one another's burdens and bear the failings of the weak, not merely to please ourselves. What he is getting at is to take seriously the fact that we are part of a community as sisters and brothers in Christ.
Early in our pericope Paul refers to "what was written in former days." He is referring not to ancient literature and everything that preceded the first century but rather specifically to the Scriptures, a point that is made clearly as the verse moves along. Scriptures for Paul would, of course, be the Old Testament. They provide hope in their witness to God and to God's dealings with people throughout the history of Israel. Paul then exhorts the God of steadfastness to grant such harmony with one another that we can glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one voice.
The reference to harmony here is part of the expectation of the kingdom to come. We saw that in our discussion of Isaiah 2:1-5, where all nations will learn to live peacefully with one another. Our vision of the kingdom from Isaiah 11 also indicates the harmony that exists in the entire world of God's created things, particularly between animals that are presently hostile to one another and creatures that are hostile to human beings. That kind of harmony which is expected of the kingdom as a whole is now part of Paul's exhortation to Christians who are a living foretaste of the future kingdom. That God may be glorified with one voice is now all these different pieces come together.
Paul goes on, just as he began chapter 14, urging the members of the congregation in Rome to welcome one another. It is interesting to note that in the Gospels, only Luke reports that Christ welcomed people, even those who intruded on his plans for rest with the disciples. The word used there, however, is apodexomai, which the author of Luke-Acts uses elsewhere (Acts 2:41; 24:3). However, it is in Acts 18:27; 21:17; and 28:30 where the author uses apodexomai in precisely the same way proslambano is used here: welcoming one another within the faith community. As for proslambano itself, Paul employs the word in the previous chapter to "welcome" one who is weak, because "God has welcomed him" (vv. 1, 3) and at Philemon 17 where he encourages Philemon to "welcome" his slave as his brother in Christ as he would Paul.
The rest of the paragraph in verses 8-12 actually indicates that it is time to celebrate the fact that the kingdom has begun. The mere fact that in the congregation at Rome both Jews and Gentiles worship together is considered to be a sign of the promised kingdom to come. One quotation after another from the Old Testament (Psalm 18:49; Deuteronomy 32:43; Psalm 117:1; Isaiah 11:10) indicates that because Jews and Gentiles worship together in the same congregation we have proof that the Christian community is already an expression of God's kingdom to come. That enables one to celebrate diversity in such a way that the promises of God hold true and therefore God is to be praised.
The final verse (15:13) is a benediction describing God as a God of hope, filling that congregation "with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." It seems as though the bookends of our pericope have to do with hope. As we look back to verse 4 the purpose of the scriptures is that we might have hope. Now at the conclusion of verse 13 we again have references to hope.
Hope is the mark of the Advent season. It is not simply wishful thinking but rather hope in what God has already accomplished so that we might look to the future with eager expectation.
Matthew 3:1-12
The story of the genealogy, conception, and birth of Jesus along with the holy family's flight into Egypt in Jesus' infancy are told in the first two chapters of Matthew. In chapter 3 we are introduced to John the Baptist, whose role is to be a forerunner of the Day of the Lord and of the Christ himself. The passage begins with the powerful expression "In those days," an expression that rings of eschatological prophecy. Frequently used in the Old Testament, the phrase was one of several expressions which referred to the Day of the Lord or the beginning of "kingdom time." Here we have the phrase "in those days" sounding almost as if it were a simple "once upon a time." But it is much more emphatic than that. The preaching of John the Baptist is now connected with the fulfillment of God's plans for the future.
John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and that role of preaching is his primary function. It is the content of his preaching that is the focus for us today. His sermon is simple: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We must be careful to avoid the mistake of interpreting this to mean that repentance is necessary for the kingdom of heaven to come. The fact of the matter is, the kingdom of heaven is already at hand. Therefore, in light of that reality, John calls on the people to repent. Our repentance has nothing to do with the coming of the kingdom, rather the coming of the kingdom is the motive for our repentance.
John's sermon announces a day of salvation and connects it with Old Testament prophecy by quoting Isaiah 40:3: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. If we turn to Isaiah 40:3, however, we will notice that the punctuation has changed, apparently in order to have John's voice crying in the wilderness of Judea. In reality the Old Testament quotation reads: "The voice of one crying: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight in the desert." The Isaiah passage is part of the call of Second Isaiah to be a prophet of comfort and a prophet who announces salvation to people of Jerusalem who had been exiles in the land of Babylon. This "voice" is to prepare the way for the act of salvation; the salvation is the inauguration of the reign of God (Isaiah 52:7-10).
Despite the change in punctuation, the Isaiah passage fits most appropriately into the understanding of what John is announcing, namely, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
On second glance it may strike us odd when Matthew proceeds to describe John's apparel. Seldom is clothing of an individual given such importance. We look with suspicion when a major character in a movie wears a pair of trousers with the label "Dockers" showing. Has someone paid for an advertisement, like "Buy your desert duds at Levi's"? Matthew describes John as wearing clothing of camel's hair with a belt of leather. What is the point? Strikingly, it is Elijah who wears the same clothing (see the story in 2 Kings 1, particularly v. 8). What is the role of Elijah? According to the Book of Malachi, it is Elijah and not the Messiah who prepares the way for the Day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5-6). In short, John's clothing, identical to Elijah's, indicates as much by appearance as by words, the Day of the Lord is here!
This Day of the Lord is a day of salvation precisely because it is the Day of the Lord that inaugurates God's Reign. It is also a day of judgment, and John includes judgment on the Pharisees and Sadducees, even as they approach John for baptism (see the axe laying low the tree in Isaiah 11). At this point Luke has John address the crowds as a "brood of vipers," implying that the people of Israel have earned the title, but Matthew directs the speech to the religious groups, the Pharisees and Sadducees, giving the impression that not all the people of Israel are so labeled. By selecting them for such a vicious title, Matthew's John casts aside the formality of religion in favor of bearing "fruit worthy of repentance" (v. 8). Also rejected is any notion that the genealogical line from Abraham can secure the Jewish people in God's grace, because baptism in the New Testament brings people of all races into the family of God, and each person is called to live out that baptism by fruitful works.
Yet Matthew describes the baptism of John as distinct from that of the Coming One. John's baptism is one of repentance while the baptism of the Coming One is one of the Holy Spirit and fire (vv. 11-12). The imagery of the winnowing fork conveys the age-old agrarian practice of throwing the harvest into the air so that the heavier grain falls to the floor while the lighter waste material blows to the side. The chaff is then burned while the grain is gathered for consumption.
The one who will wield the threshing fork is called "he who is coming after me" (v. 11). On the basis of the story as we (and Matthew) knew it to unfold, that "one" is Jesus. Interpreters should at least ask, however, whom John the Baptist himself had in mind as he uttered those words. If John understood himself as fulfilling the role of Elijah, then we must recall that the Book of Malachi ends with Yahweh sending Elijah to prepare people for the coming of the Day of the Lord. Furthermore, if John thought of himself, as the Gospel writers did, as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness" from Isaiah 40:3, then the voice was announcing the coming salvation from exile and the ensuing Reign of God. Neither of those Old Testament contexts looks forward to the Messiah. Both anticipate the coming of the Lord to establish the kingdom. In that light John might not have been thinking so much of the Messiah as of the Lord and the Day. After all, his sermon announced that "the kingdom of heaven has come near."
The New Testament, of course, interprets the coming of God and the kingdom of heaven with the ministry, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. At the same time, the four Gospels, most of the epistles, and the Book of Revelation look forward to the time when Christ comes again to establish the kingdom unambiguously over all the world. Until the kingdom arrives at high noon, God calls us to be about the business of announcing the dawn by our words and by our fruitful deeds. That business is not the work of the isolated hero but of the community at worship in the church and as the church in the waiting world.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 11:1-10
This passage is part of the larger section of Isaiah 10:5--11:16 that portrays the defeat of Assyria, the gathering of the remnant of Israel that was deported to Assyria in 721 B.C., and the defeat of Israel's enemies. Specifically, it deals with the future ideal time, when Israel's messianic king will rule in a blessed kingdom of peace.
Our word for messiah comes from the Hebrew masiah, which means "anointed," and it refers to the anointed Davidic king. During the reign of David in the tenth century B.C., God promised that there would never be lacking a Davidic heir to sit upon the throne (2 Samuel 7:13, 16). To realize the importance of that, we must understand that Israel's life was bound up completely with its Davidic ruler, whose righteousness before God insured that the people were also counted righteous in God's eyes -- the king was the corporate representative of the people. Israel therefore looked for that perfect Davidic ruler to come, and of every occupant of the throne, the people inquired, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?" God's promise in this passage, therefore, is that such a messiah will indeed come and make his people righteous in the sight of God.
There is a certain disgust with the line of Israel's Davidic rulers mirrored in verse 1. None of them has been the fulfillment of Israel's expectation of a saving messiah. None has measured up. But the promise here in our text is that such a messiah will come, and a description of his character is given in detail.
Most important, the coming messiah will be given the Spirit of the Lord that will rest or remain with him permanently (v. 2). Usually in the scriptures, the Spirit is given only temporarily in order that a task may be done, but the messiah will have the Spirit as a permanent endowment, and it is that Spirit that furnishes him with all of his qualities. Significantly, therefore, our Lord receives the Spirit of God at his baptism, and John 1:32 states that the Spirit descends upon Jesus and remains with him. We can therefore say that the picture of the coming Davidic messiah that we have in this passage is also the picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose birthday we remember in this Advent season and whose second coming we look forward to.
From the Spirit, states our text, the messiah will receive a six-fold gift (v. 2). He will be given the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, so he will know the right thing to do. But he will also be given the Spirit of counsel and might, so that he has the power to put his wisdom into effect. The wisdom of human beings is distorted by sin, and though we think we can proceed according to our own plans, apart from the Word and Spirit of God, our autonomous reason always leads us into disaster (cf. Isaiah 5:21; 29:14), a fact vividly illustrated in the morning headlines. Such is not the case with the messiah, however. He thinks and acts by the wisdom and power of God. As Jesus says, "The Son does nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19).
The messiah is also given the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. In the scriptures, knowledge of God is intimate, inmost knowledge of God's nature and will and actions. To know God is to live in intimate daily communion with him, while to fear God is to reverence him. Thus, God's messiah will live in the company of God in true worship and service.
Verse 3 tells us, moreover, that the messiah will delight in his obedience and worship of God. He will have joy in his life with God, that joy that Jesus and every true disciple knows. In contrast to those who think that obedience to God is a burden and worship a bore, here is the testimony that constant fellowship with God is delightful, because our God is indeed an enjoyable God. He is many other things, but he is also enjoyable.
The messiah comes to set our sinful world in order and to establish God's rule over all the earth. Thus, in this Advent season we not only look backwards to the birth of Jesus, but we look forward to his coming again. And we are told in our text that he comes first of all to restore the helpless and meek of this earth to their proper place in society (v. 4). The messiah will not be swayed by earthly standards and judgment, not by outward evidences (cf. John 2:25; 7:24). Rather, he will judge in righteousness and equity, making that straight in society that has been crooked, restoring rights to the oppressed, and safety and security to the weak (cf. Isaiah 10:1-2; 32:1; Psalm 72:12-14), while at the same time condemning the wicked to death. Surely that is a cautionary warning to all of us who await the coming of our Lord.
When our messiah comes, however, the right that he restores to society will find its counterpoint in the natural world, where every kind of violence will be eliminated (vv. 6-8). Throughout the Bible, human sin is said to ruin the natural world (Genesis 3:17-18; 9:2; Jeremiah 12:4; Romans 8:19-23). But the messiah will establish peace in the animal kingdom, and peace between the wild beasts and human beings. The serpent of our sin, referred to in verse 8, will become a harmless plaything for children, and the peaceable kingdom will be one in which no one will ever again hurt or destroy (v. 9). The whole earth will obey and reverence God, and the Lord's universal kingdom will be established throughout the world. God's messiah comes to save all on this earth (cf. Isaiah 45:6; 52:10; 66:23).
Verse 10 is a later addition to our original text, and the "root of Jesse" here no longer stands for the origin of the messianic king, as in verse 1, but rather refers to the messianic king himself, who will be an ensign, that is, a standard, a signal, lifted up for all to see and to which all shall come, a note reminiscent of John 12:32. Verse 10 has been added as a transition to give the passage a universal note, but that is already found in the preceding verses. Verses 10-11 form a transition to verses 12-16.
What we finally have in our text, therefore, is a description of the One who was born at Bethlehem and of the same One who will come again to judge the earth and to establish God's kingdom. The passage is a vivid description of the character of our messiah, a revelation of the nature of the Lord whom we worship and serve.
The classic movie by that title indicates that the morning can be filled with tension and trouble. Not only do external forces present the threat, but the threat expected at noon must be faced with little help from people normally trustworthy. While we must be careful against following Gary Cooper down the road of the rugged individualist, his role for the movie does indeed reflect the feeling of many folks forsaken along the way. There are many challenges to face before riding off with the Bride after noon has arrived.
Isaiah 11:1-10
This vision of the Book of Isaiah is once more a portrayal of salvation inasmuch as it depicts for us the reign of God to come. In particular, the vision emphasizes the Messianic rule and the results of that rule to which the people of Israel look in hope.
Perhaps we can best understand this pericope if we look first at the last two verses of chapter 10. There in the midst of Isaiah's commission to preach judgment on Jerusalem, the prophet announced that the Lord will lop the boughs with terrifying power, cutting down one tree after another. It is in light of that imagery of the trees being felled that our pericope can be understood; a shoot shall come from the stump of Jesse.
The theological problem posed here is that God had promised in 2 Samuel 7 that a Davidic king would always reign on Jerusalem's throne. Can it be that the tree of Jesse itself -- David's father -- will be annihilated? Where is the hope for the people of Israel if they cannot count on the promise of God to maintain on the throne a descendant of David?
Isaiah is confident and hopeful. A shoot -- a descendant -- shall come from the stump of Jesse, and on this descendant will fall the sevenfold gift of the spirit. All of the expressions here indicate that this is one who is wise. One will recall Solomon, when he had his opportunity to have anything he wanted, requested "a wise and discerning mind" so that he might govern the people of Israel (1 Kings 3:9, 12). Since Solomon was obviously the first descendant of David in this promised dynasty, we can see immediately the connections in our verses to the promises of God.
Verses 3b-5 indicate the function of the Davidic king to come in this messianic age. He will do what all kings were called to do -- that is to judge the poor with righteousness and decide for the meek of the earth with equity. These functions are part of the job description of Davidic kings (see 1 Kings 3:16ff; 7:7). The Royal Psalms, especially 72:4, point out that the responsibility of the king is to establish justice, and in Psalm 45:7 establishing justice for the poor in righteousness is a significant function for a Davidic king. Protecting the poor and the oppressed is in fact the work of God (see Psalm 9:9; Proverbs 22:22-23; 23:10-11). This ideal Davidic king to come will judge not on the basis of eyewitness accounts or hearsay but will establish justice for the poor and for the meek of the earth.
"He shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked." Here we have an interesting dilemma. One would expect the lines of poetry to contain all synonyms, but looking at line 1 ("the earth") we find that it is not parallel to line 2 ("the wicked"). That would indicate that something is wrong. The suggestion is that the Hebrew word has been confused for another word. Instead of 'eretz, meaning "earth," we should read 'ariz, which means "ruthless" (cf. Job 15:20 and 27:13). It is, therefore, not the earth that is to be smitten but the ruthless because they are oppressors of the poor. The elimination of these evil ones will be part of the role of the Messianic king in the kingdom to come.
The clothing this king wears -- righteousness and faithfulness around his waist -- will be similar to the righteousness and justice that form the foundation for the throne of God (see Psalm 97:2; 99:4). To our ears righteousness and faithfulness sound like quite separate qualities, and the reader of this pericope might wonder how they fit together in the same verse. The primary interpretive context here is the parallelism of the two words that indicates they mean essentially the same thing. Righteousness in the Old Testament often refers to the acts of a person that fulfill the obligations of a relationship. In that sense, righteousness and faithfulness or fidelity express the same quality, and both make sense within the relationship called a covenant.
Verses 6-9 depict what the kingdom -- over which the Davidic king, who is endowed with the spirit and executing justice -- will look like. It is the picture of universal peace and harmony that has become the subject of many paintings throughout the centuries. The description here indicates the contrast between sight and vision. In our present experience wolves like nothing better than to devour a lamb. A leopard likewise will do the same with a kid. In the kingdom to come, however, wolves and lambs, leopards and kids will live together peacefully, even sleep side by side. When we look again at the parallelism, we quickly notice that there are two animals connected by a verb. When we come to verse six, however, we have three animals and no verb. "The calf and the lion and the fatling together." Without a verb who knows what they were doing together. The Dead Sea scrolls manuscript of Isaiah shows us how to read the line correctly: "a calf and a lion shall feed together, and a little child shall lead them." That reading enables us to read the verse as similar in style to those preceding it.
The imagery of the child playing over the hole of the poisonous snake in verse eight is a fantastic image and again represents vision over sight. The present experience is best illustrated with Genesis 3:14-15, where hostility describes the attitude between humans and snakes. Isaiah's vision of the kingdom to come reverses the situation that resulted from human sinfulness.
Verse nine continues with the phrase "they will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain." The holy mountain of the Lord is the one on which the Temple stands. That mount called Zion in most of the Old Testament will be full of the knowledge of the Lord. Certainly "knowledge" must be understood in the biblical sense -- an intimate experience with God rather than an intellectual awareness of God's existence. With that kind of intimacy and relationship with God, all the rest can be explained. Because of the reconciliation of people to God in the new kingdom to come, all the rest of God's creatures will live together in harmony.
The imagery of verses 6-9 is almost identical to the vision in Isaiah 65, particularly verses 17-25, the vision about the new heaven and new earth (vv. 17-22). There the images of peace and harmony portray the finishing touches to the masterpiece of a new creation. Here the images bring to conclusion the portrayal of the messianic reign to come.
Verse 10 is another expression of the Day of the Lord where the one who is to come from the root of Jesse shall serve as a sign for all peoples. Of his dwelling place, Isaiah 11:10 writes it shall be glorious. A better translation would read, "His resting place shall be glorious." The expression is used often in the Old Testament to refer to Mount Zion or for the land of Israel itself. This is not simply a spot to dwell but a resting place of stability and security.
The vision of the Messianic kingdom expressed a profound hope for the people of Israel during uncertain, even terrifying, times in their history. That hope in what the Lord would bring to pass enabled them to work through the uncertain morning in anticipation of high noon.
Romans 15:4-13
Although our pericope is plucked from chapter 15, it is important for a moment to look back to Romans 14 where Paul expresses the kind of "life in the light" which would be important for the mutual support of the Christian community. He starts that chapter by indicating that the congregation in Rome should welcome the person who is weak in faith. As Paul continues through the chapter he develops the means of mutual upbuilding, and comments on the need to refuse passing judgment on one another. When we reach chapter 15, Paul indicates we ought to bear one another's burdens and bear the failings of the weak, not merely to please ourselves. What he is getting at is to take seriously the fact that we are part of a community as sisters and brothers in Christ.
Early in our pericope Paul refers to "what was written in former days." He is referring not to ancient literature and everything that preceded the first century but rather specifically to the Scriptures, a point that is made clearly as the verse moves along. Scriptures for Paul would, of course, be the Old Testament. They provide hope in their witness to God and to God's dealings with people throughout the history of Israel. Paul then exhorts the God of steadfastness to grant such harmony with one another that we can glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with one voice.
The reference to harmony here is part of the expectation of the kingdom to come. We saw that in our discussion of Isaiah 2:1-5, where all nations will learn to live peacefully with one another. Our vision of the kingdom from Isaiah 11 also indicates the harmony that exists in the entire world of God's created things, particularly between animals that are presently hostile to one another and creatures that are hostile to human beings. That kind of harmony which is expected of the kingdom as a whole is now part of Paul's exhortation to Christians who are a living foretaste of the future kingdom. That God may be glorified with one voice is now all these different pieces come together.
Paul goes on, just as he began chapter 14, urging the members of the congregation in Rome to welcome one another. It is interesting to note that in the Gospels, only Luke reports that Christ welcomed people, even those who intruded on his plans for rest with the disciples. The word used there, however, is apodexomai, which the author of Luke-Acts uses elsewhere (Acts 2:41; 24:3). However, it is in Acts 18:27; 21:17; and 28:30 where the author uses apodexomai in precisely the same way proslambano is used here: welcoming one another within the faith community. As for proslambano itself, Paul employs the word in the previous chapter to "welcome" one who is weak, because "God has welcomed him" (vv. 1, 3) and at Philemon 17 where he encourages Philemon to "welcome" his slave as his brother in Christ as he would Paul.
The rest of the paragraph in verses 8-12 actually indicates that it is time to celebrate the fact that the kingdom has begun. The mere fact that in the congregation at Rome both Jews and Gentiles worship together is considered to be a sign of the promised kingdom to come. One quotation after another from the Old Testament (Psalm 18:49; Deuteronomy 32:43; Psalm 117:1; Isaiah 11:10) indicates that because Jews and Gentiles worship together in the same congregation we have proof that the Christian community is already an expression of God's kingdom to come. That enables one to celebrate diversity in such a way that the promises of God hold true and therefore God is to be praised.
The final verse (15:13) is a benediction describing God as a God of hope, filling that congregation "with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." It seems as though the bookends of our pericope have to do with hope. As we look back to verse 4 the purpose of the scriptures is that we might have hope. Now at the conclusion of verse 13 we again have references to hope.
Hope is the mark of the Advent season. It is not simply wishful thinking but rather hope in what God has already accomplished so that we might look to the future with eager expectation.
Matthew 3:1-12
The story of the genealogy, conception, and birth of Jesus along with the holy family's flight into Egypt in Jesus' infancy are told in the first two chapters of Matthew. In chapter 3 we are introduced to John the Baptist, whose role is to be a forerunner of the Day of the Lord and of the Christ himself. The passage begins with the powerful expression "In those days," an expression that rings of eschatological prophecy. Frequently used in the Old Testament, the phrase was one of several expressions which referred to the Day of the Lord or the beginning of "kingdom time." Here we have the phrase "in those days" sounding almost as if it were a simple "once upon a time." But it is much more emphatic than that. The preaching of John the Baptist is now connected with the fulfillment of God's plans for the future.
John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea and that role of preaching is his primary function. It is the content of his preaching that is the focus for us today. His sermon is simple: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." We must be careful to avoid the mistake of interpreting this to mean that repentance is necessary for the kingdom of heaven to come. The fact of the matter is, the kingdom of heaven is already at hand. Therefore, in light of that reality, John calls on the people to repent. Our repentance has nothing to do with the coming of the kingdom, rather the coming of the kingdom is the motive for our repentance.
John's sermon announces a day of salvation and connects it with Old Testament prophecy by quoting Isaiah 40:3: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. If we turn to Isaiah 40:3, however, we will notice that the punctuation has changed, apparently in order to have John's voice crying in the wilderness of Judea. In reality the Old Testament quotation reads: "The voice of one crying: In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight in the desert." The Isaiah passage is part of the call of Second Isaiah to be a prophet of comfort and a prophet who announces salvation to people of Jerusalem who had been exiles in the land of Babylon. This "voice" is to prepare the way for the act of salvation; the salvation is the inauguration of the reign of God (Isaiah 52:7-10).
Despite the change in punctuation, the Isaiah passage fits most appropriately into the understanding of what John is announcing, namely, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
On second glance it may strike us odd when Matthew proceeds to describe John's apparel. Seldom is clothing of an individual given such importance. We look with suspicion when a major character in a movie wears a pair of trousers with the label "Dockers" showing. Has someone paid for an advertisement, like "Buy your desert duds at Levi's"? Matthew describes John as wearing clothing of camel's hair with a belt of leather. What is the point? Strikingly, it is Elijah who wears the same clothing (see the story in 2 Kings 1, particularly v. 8). What is the role of Elijah? According to the Book of Malachi, it is Elijah and not the Messiah who prepares the way for the Day of the Lord (Malachi 4:5-6). In short, John's clothing, identical to Elijah's, indicates as much by appearance as by words, the Day of the Lord is here!
This Day of the Lord is a day of salvation precisely because it is the Day of the Lord that inaugurates God's Reign. It is also a day of judgment, and John includes judgment on the Pharisees and Sadducees, even as they approach John for baptism (see the axe laying low the tree in Isaiah 11). At this point Luke has John address the crowds as a "brood of vipers," implying that the people of Israel have earned the title, but Matthew directs the speech to the religious groups, the Pharisees and Sadducees, giving the impression that not all the people of Israel are so labeled. By selecting them for such a vicious title, Matthew's John casts aside the formality of religion in favor of bearing "fruit worthy of repentance" (v. 8). Also rejected is any notion that the genealogical line from Abraham can secure the Jewish people in God's grace, because baptism in the New Testament brings people of all races into the family of God, and each person is called to live out that baptism by fruitful works.
Yet Matthew describes the baptism of John as distinct from that of the Coming One. John's baptism is one of repentance while the baptism of the Coming One is one of the Holy Spirit and fire (vv. 11-12). The imagery of the winnowing fork conveys the age-old agrarian practice of throwing the harvest into the air so that the heavier grain falls to the floor while the lighter waste material blows to the side. The chaff is then burned while the grain is gathered for consumption.
The one who will wield the threshing fork is called "he who is coming after me" (v. 11). On the basis of the story as we (and Matthew) knew it to unfold, that "one" is Jesus. Interpreters should at least ask, however, whom John the Baptist himself had in mind as he uttered those words. If John understood himself as fulfilling the role of Elijah, then we must recall that the Book of Malachi ends with Yahweh sending Elijah to prepare people for the coming of the Day of the Lord. Furthermore, if John thought of himself, as the Gospel writers did, as "the voice of one crying in the wilderness" from Isaiah 40:3, then the voice was announcing the coming salvation from exile and the ensuing Reign of God. Neither of those Old Testament contexts looks forward to the Messiah. Both anticipate the coming of the Lord to establish the kingdom. In that light John might not have been thinking so much of the Messiah as of the Lord and the Day. After all, his sermon announced that "the kingdom of heaven has come near."
The New Testament, of course, interprets the coming of God and the kingdom of heaven with the ministry, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. At the same time, the four Gospels, most of the epistles, and the Book of Revelation look forward to the time when Christ comes again to establish the kingdom unambiguously over all the world. Until the kingdom arrives at high noon, God calls us to be about the business of announcing the dawn by our words and by our fruitful deeds. That business is not the work of the isolated hero but of the community at worship in the church and as the church in the waiting world.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 11:1-10
This passage is part of the larger section of Isaiah 10:5--11:16 that portrays the defeat of Assyria, the gathering of the remnant of Israel that was deported to Assyria in 721 B.C., and the defeat of Israel's enemies. Specifically, it deals with the future ideal time, when Israel's messianic king will rule in a blessed kingdom of peace.
Our word for messiah comes from the Hebrew masiah, which means "anointed," and it refers to the anointed Davidic king. During the reign of David in the tenth century B.C., God promised that there would never be lacking a Davidic heir to sit upon the throne (2 Samuel 7:13, 16). To realize the importance of that, we must understand that Israel's life was bound up completely with its Davidic ruler, whose righteousness before God insured that the people were also counted righteous in God's eyes -- the king was the corporate representative of the people. Israel therefore looked for that perfect Davidic ruler to come, and of every occupant of the throne, the people inquired, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for another?" God's promise in this passage, therefore, is that such a messiah will indeed come and make his people righteous in the sight of God.
There is a certain disgust with the line of Israel's Davidic rulers mirrored in verse 1. None of them has been the fulfillment of Israel's expectation of a saving messiah. None has measured up. But the promise here in our text is that such a messiah will come, and a description of his character is given in detail.
Most important, the coming messiah will be given the Spirit of the Lord that will rest or remain with him permanently (v. 2). Usually in the scriptures, the Spirit is given only temporarily in order that a task may be done, but the messiah will have the Spirit as a permanent endowment, and it is that Spirit that furnishes him with all of his qualities. Significantly, therefore, our Lord receives the Spirit of God at his baptism, and John 1:32 states that the Spirit descends upon Jesus and remains with him. We can therefore say that the picture of the coming Davidic messiah that we have in this passage is also the picture of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose birthday we remember in this Advent season and whose second coming we look forward to.
From the Spirit, states our text, the messiah will receive a six-fold gift (v. 2). He will be given the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, so he will know the right thing to do. But he will also be given the Spirit of counsel and might, so that he has the power to put his wisdom into effect. The wisdom of human beings is distorted by sin, and though we think we can proceed according to our own plans, apart from the Word and Spirit of God, our autonomous reason always leads us into disaster (cf. Isaiah 5:21; 29:14), a fact vividly illustrated in the morning headlines. Such is not the case with the messiah, however. He thinks and acts by the wisdom and power of God. As Jesus says, "The Son does nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing" (John 5:19).
The messiah is also given the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. In the scriptures, knowledge of God is intimate, inmost knowledge of God's nature and will and actions. To know God is to live in intimate daily communion with him, while to fear God is to reverence him. Thus, God's messiah will live in the company of God in true worship and service.
Verse 3 tells us, moreover, that the messiah will delight in his obedience and worship of God. He will have joy in his life with God, that joy that Jesus and every true disciple knows. In contrast to those who think that obedience to God is a burden and worship a bore, here is the testimony that constant fellowship with God is delightful, because our God is indeed an enjoyable God. He is many other things, but he is also enjoyable.
The messiah comes to set our sinful world in order and to establish God's rule over all the earth. Thus, in this Advent season we not only look backwards to the birth of Jesus, but we look forward to his coming again. And we are told in our text that he comes first of all to restore the helpless and meek of this earth to their proper place in society (v. 4). The messiah will not be swayed by earthly standards and judgment, not by outward evidences (cf. John 2:25; 7:24). Rather, he will judge in righteousness and equity, making that straight in society that has been crooked, restoring rights to the oppressed, and safety and security to the weak (cf. Isaiah 10:1-2; 32:1; Psalm 72:12-14), while at the same time condemning the wicked to death. Surely that is a cautionary warning to all of us who await the coming of our Lord.
When our messiah comes, however, the right that he restores to society will find its counterpoint in the natural world, where every kind of violence will be eliminated (vv. 6-8). Throughout the Bible, human sin is said to ruin the natural world (Genesis 3:17-18; 9:2; Jeremiah 12:4; Romans 8:19-23). But the messiah will establish peace in the animal kingdom, and peace between the wild beasts and human beings. The serpent of our sin, referred to in verse 8, will become a harmless plaything for children, and the peaceable kingdom will be one in which no one will ever again hurt or destroy (v. 9). The whole earth will obey and reverence God, and the Lord's universal kingdom will be established throughout the world. God's messiah comes to save all on this earth (cf. Isaiah 45:6; 52:10; 66:23).
Verse 10 is a later addition to our original text, and the "root of Jesse" here no longer stands for the origin of the messianic king, as in verse 1, but rather refers to the messianic king himself, who will be an ensign, that is, a standard, a signal, lifted up for all to see and to which all shall come, a note reminiscent of John 12:32. Verse 10 has been added as a transition to give the passage a universal note, but that is already found in the preceding verses. Verses 10-11 form a transition to verses 12-16.
What we finally have in our text, therefore, is a description of the One who was born at Bethlehem and of the same One who will come again to judge the earth and to establish God's kingdom. The passage is a vivid description of the character of our messiah, a revelation of the nature of the Lord whom we worship and serve.
