Lo, A Revelation

Isaiah 11:1-10

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
    and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
    the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
    the spirit of counsel and might,
    the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
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 for the poor
    and decide with equity for the oppressed 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.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
    and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

The wolf shall live with the lamb;
    the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
    and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
    their young shall lie down together;
    and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
    and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
    on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
    as the waters cover the sea.

On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

One of the reasons I was looking forward to preaching on this both kind of intense and utopian passage of Isaiah was because it meant I had an excellent opportunity to pick one of my favorite carols for this service, the one we will sing after this sermon—“Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming.” We’ll see when we begin singing it, and surely as some of you know already, the first verse reads of a stem springing from the root of Jesse, a beautiful musical paraphrasing of the passage Crystal just read for us. So with that beautiful hymn stuck in my head, I started doing some research on it, hoping there was some incredible story or interesting piece of history behind the writing and composition of this carol that would make for a tie-in for a lovely Advent sermon. But, no such luck. In fact, compared to a lot of famous Advent hymns and Christmas carols, there’s very little history about the carol at all. In an essay about the carol and it’s composition and history, the journalist Robinson Meyer writes,

The tune we now know first appears in a regional hymnal in 1599 as “Es Ist ein Ros Entsprungen.” Michael Praetorius, a court composer in central Germany, wrote the familiar harmonization 10 years later. Such ends the meaningful musical history of “Lo, How a Rose.”[i]

But as I dug a little deeper, I realized that, while this is technically a birth carol, a carol for Christmas itself, it’s also a perfect carol for this second Sunday in Advent— for peace.

The dating of our passage today is disputed. But it’s possible, likely even, that it is the related to the Syro-Ephraimite war that we talked about last week, about which Isaiah prophesied—you might remember that while Isaiah did have a beautiful vision of transformation, in which swords were beaten into plowshares, he had a vision, and a warning, of the idolatry of wealth and the violence that would come first. It’s possible that this week, we begin in the wreckage of that ill-conceived war—the kingdom of Judah, and the righteous Davidic line that began with Jesse is nothing but a stump. Surely morale was low. Surely many thought this was the end. But from that stump, from that almost-nothing, would arise something new.

And when that something new arises, all will be changed forever. It will be part of the prophesy of our passage last week—no more violence, bloodshed, war; no more division—all people will be as one and will walk in the light of God. This week we get more; not just the end of violence, but the end of any kind of conflict, the end of any oppression, the end of any iniquity. Those who have created so much evil will be no more, and the poor and the oppressed will be lifted at long last. It will truly be heaven on earth, lion with lamb, infants happily playing with poisonous snakes.

In his essay on Lo How a Rose, Meyer makes note of the fact that this carol was written for a choir, and that there are really no proper solo versions of it, and those who have tried to sing this solo have failed—he makes a pointed dig at the musician Sting here… and I did listen to Sting’s version, and I concur with Meyer. Meyer writes that Lo How a Rose is a homophony—a song in which there is a primary part, and then on or more other parts support that, coming together to make a beautiful harmony, multiple voices, as one. He writes, “This is a hymn about beholding and listening. It’s about watching revelation flourish.”[ii] Beholding and listening. Watching revelation flourish. This is Advent. Behold the miracle of Christ. Listen to the angel’s message. Watch the revelation of God come to earth in human form. It comes, and we are paying attention, and we are listening for it.

When I read the word flourish, I was reminded of a sermon a couple months back on Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry, a small, beautiful book about the possibility of a world run on abundance and reciprocity, rather than scarcity and resource-hoarding. Kimmerer writes,

The currency in a gift economy is relationship, which is expressed as gratitude, as interdependence and the ongoing cycles of reciprocity. A gift economy nurtures the community bonds that enhance mutual well-being; the economic unit is “we” rather than “I,” as all flourishing is mutual.[iii]

A world in which community bonds are nurtured; a world in which relationships and togetherness and support are the goal. A world in which this abundance and reciprocity solve the problem of iniquity that Isaiah is constantly force to rail against; a problem that is just as damaging now as it was in his day.

In Isaiah’s day, as he laments in chapter 5, the rich and powerful were hoarding land, they were arrogant, they were oppressive; they were giving into the temptations of silver and gold; the gap between the haves and have-nots was growing wider every day. I mean the sermon writes itself: 5:8: Woe to those who join house to house / who add field to field, / until there is room for no one, / and you are left to live alone / in the midst of the land! 5:18 “Woe to those who drag iniquity along with cords of falsehood…” 5:23: “woe to those…who acquit the guilty for a bribe / and deprive the innocent of their rights!” This is the world in which Isaiah lived. This is in the world in which we live.  

And today, we find ourselves, 6 chapters later… the kingdom of Judah, once a flourishing ecosystem of faith and righteousness, reduced to a lowly stump. But when all seems lost, something emerges. We get a second chance. We get something brand new. We begin to see the possibility of a better world. We have the chance to right our wrongs, to follow this mysterious child into a new land— one in which all will live in mutual flourishing, in beautiful harmony together.

How does one believably preach about peace in a world like ours? A world in which Russia’s invasion continues, a world in which the supposed cease-fire in Gaza has not put an end to oppression, occupation, or violence? How do we talk about peace when in our very own country, people are being beaten, wrongfully detained and deported by militarized ICE agents; when the leaders of our very own country are ordering bombings of fishing boats in the Caribbean, killing civilians? With all deep brokenness, how do we talk about peace without it seeming like some kind of hippy-dippy, pie-in-the-sky notion that can never truly be realized, as long as we humans are what we are? It often, to me at least, feels like this country is a shadow of what it once claimed to stand for, nothing but a stump, the smallest remnant of the freedom it once promised all people; and  in our passage today, before we get to the lion laying with the lamb, we have we have this troubling section of death, the rod of this new leader’s mouth—even Isaiah struggled to imagine peace without violence. So in the spirit of Advent, in the spirit of newness and revelation, I would ask for us to think of peace differently. How can we practice Isaiah’s promise of peace? How can we practice Jesus’ mind-blowingly gentle peace he brought to this world?

In a world so divided, in a world in which everyone seems to be out for themselves, we make true peace by supporting each other. We make peace by giving when we have more than we need; we make peace by appreciating one another’s gifts; we make peace by acknowledging and respecting one another’s differences; we make peace by not giving into whatever violent notions lay deep in our broken human natures. We make peace by making sure those around us, no matter who they are can thrive and flourish. We make peace by making sure this earth can flourish—by giving, by supporting, by listening. If wars and violence start with taking, hoarding, and fear, doesn’t logic tell us to remedy this we do the opposite? We give, disseminate, we comfort. And then we “watch revelation flourish.”

When we get to verse 6 in our passage, even though the poetry flows beautifully, the content takes a sudden turn— we go from language that is relatively grounded and based in history to this almost mythological language—it’s crazy enough to imagine world peace when it comes to human nature, but to imagine wolves and lambs living harmoniously, to imagine your beloved child safely playing over the nest of a poisonous snake is truly laughable (I generally come close to cardiac arrest when Frankie stumbles the tiniest bit anywhere in the vicinity our wood burning stove). But maybe that’s the point.

I was reading, or rather listening to, a short story the other day by Joy Williams, and in the story, a character made a simple comment that struck me in the moment: “Despair is an individual’s lack of vision.” Last week, we read the beginning of chapter 2 of Isaiah, which started with the conscription, “The word that Isaiah saw.” It was the word in a vision.  What else is a prophet, but an individual who as the imagination, the creativity, and the openness to see, to hear, to speak what is possible? In a world where everyone takes and takes, we must have the openness to imagine a world in which people give and flourish.

I wonder, what the writer, composer of Lo How a Rose was inspired by when he was writing this carol— the birth of Christ, of course, but what specifically? Perhaps it was this vision of Isaiah’s, beyond the shoot from Jesse’s stump. Because he wrote a carol that was about multiple voices singing together as one, supporting one another to make beautiful art, a perfect song. It is not a carol with a booming chorus; it is not a carol that benefits from lifting a soloist’s voice above other voices. It is a carol about togetherness, about harmony, about peace. It seems to me he had a vision of the world Jesus was here to usher in—one in which no one is above anyone else; one in which we work to support each other, we make sure everyone is seen, heard, and loved; one in which all voices come together as one, to create perfect harmony.

So during this Advent season, let us do what we are called to do this time of year—behold. And listen. And during this Christmas season and beyond, let us take pleasure in the giving and the supporting. And in doing so, let us have the openness, the strength, and the creativity to have vision—of the absurd possibility of peace and harmony. May we make beautiful music together. May we watch revelation flourish. Amen.

[i] https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/lo-how-a-rose-eer-blooming/421518/

[ii] https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/12/lo-how-a-rose-eer-blooming/421518/

[iii] Kimmerer, Robin Wall. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World (p. 33). (Function). Kindle Edition.