There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist,
and faithfulness the girdle of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall feed;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The sucking child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain;
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea. Isaiah 11:1–9 (RSV)
2020 has been a challenging year. The pandemic has hung over it as clouds might on a grey day in late Fall. All the leaves have fallen to the ground, their colors muted, leaving the naked branches silhouetted in the half-light permitted. The days are shorter, nights are longer, and the coming cold darkens hearts.
Conversations wind their way to COVID 19, if not in full, at least in passing, in them is the longing for it to be over. A longing that looks to the months ahead and struggles to imagine a time when conversations, social media, and the news will no longer talk about COVID 19.
We know a small taste of what previous generations knew as the fabric of daily life. Only in the last hundred years have we be relatively free of disease throughout our lives. For most of human history, disease leading to death stalked every home, from the most humble to the palaces of the mighty.
This background gives an understanding of the hope in the Prophet's words we have never known before this year. A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse, growing every way in the purpose of the Father. He will bring about the days when righteousness, the mercy, and the fullness of the Father's love upon all the earth.
'They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,' the Father promises through His servant Isaiah. All that has wounded us, has caused us harm, all that has brought death among us will be no more.
It has begun. He was born into the darkness, sickness, sin, brutality, and death this world knows. He is the Father's Son who has brought in to being all that Isaiah dreamed. Into the weariness of our souls this day, He comes with hope beyond pandemics.
2020 has been a challenging year. It is also the year of our Lord, Two Thousand and Twenty. It is His year, as will be the year to come.