A WAKE UP CALL

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.  (Isaiah (11:1-10)

 It is clear that ours is a world that in many respects has become insensitive, if not downright rebellious and resentful of the ways of the Lord.  Much of the crime that continues to permeate our communities, the corruption that perpetuates itself at all levels within our society, and even the hatred that persists among too many people, can be attributed to the fact that we have collectively, and often individually, fallen out of relationship with God, and thus out of relationship with one another.

If we searched for a metaphor to describe the collective spiritual posture of our world, and even of many of our churches, one could easily ascertain that we are spiritually asleep – not awake – in a slumber – and thus not fully attuned to the ways that the Lord would have us to go, and the things that God would have us to do.

We are asleep.  We are on a sort of spiritual “snooze control” - where the clock of God’s divine annals of eternity sound out to awaken us, only to see us tune the Lord out, roll back over, and continue to sleep.  We’re on snooze control.  Indeed, the Lord sounds an alarm that it is time for us to wake up, it is time for us to get up on our feet, and do something about the spiritual condition of our lives, our churches, our homes, our communities, and our world. 

Indeed, God sounds the alarm, and indicates that it’s time for us to wake up, but we just turn the clock off, ignore that God is alarming us, and keep on sleeping and slumbering.  We’re on snooze control.

As we search the Scriptures, we discover that this matter of God’s people being spiritually asleep is not a new phenomenon.  We see, as we look at the book of Isaiah, that the people of Isaiah’s day were spiritually asleep, as well. 

The prophet Isaiah was writing to the people of Judah some 700 years before Christ was to come into the world, and it was Isaiah’s calling then – his mission – to alarm God’s people – to give them a wake-up call – to speak to them about the spiritual snoozing that he witnessed in the land.   They we spiritually asleep – not willing to worship like they knew how, not willing to pray like they used to, not willing to care for one another like they used to. 

And Isaiah came to wake the people of Judah up, and then offer them the hope of salvation in the midst of what they were going through in their Assyrian captivity.

In Isaiah chapter 11, verse 1, the prophet delineates the promise of the coming Messiah in the midst of what Judah was going through.  Listen to the prophet Isaiah –

A shoot shall come out from

the stump of Jesse

and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

“A shoot shall come down from the stump of Jesse.”  This image was familiar to the people of Judah, for you see during the lifetime of Isaiah, Judah – he Southern Kingdom of Israel - was only a stump in comparison to the mighty forest of Assyria who held them in captivity.  Yet in God’s divine timing, by Gods power and might, through God’s wisdom, and in God’s promise of salvation - the stump would become great. 

And then Isaiah used the fitting analogy of a branch growing out of roots to describe the impending birth of Jesus.  The supernatural, immaculate, and miraculous incarnation – would come in the form of the simple on the night that Jesus would be born. 

The prophetic vision of Isaiah contains oracles against the rebellious, recalcitrant, and obstinate people of Judah.  The Hebrew name “Isaiah” means “The Lord gives salvation.”  He came to wake the people of God up, and to offer a glimpse of the salvation of the Lord that was to come.

This is the story of Advent.  It is a wake-up call.  Again, Isaiah wrote these words of hope and promise about the Lord’s coming into the world about 700 hundred years before the Lord would be born.  But Isaiah wanted to sound an alarm them that the time was right for Judah to get their lives in order and be ready for the Lord’s appearing whenever it would be.

For no one knows the day or the hour of the Lord’s appearing, but the time is well-nigh for us to wake up and be ready when Jesus appears. 

It is incumbent on you and me to be awake and ready for the Lord’s appearing in our lives, whenever and wherever it will be.

There’s a story of a young boy who had just gotten his driving permit. He asked his father, who was a minister, if they could discuss the use of the car. His father took him to his study and said to him, "I'll make a deal with you. You bring your grades up, study your Bible a little and get your hair cut and we'll talk about it."

After about a month the boy came back and again asked his father if they could discuss use of the car. They again went to the father's study where his father said, "Son, I've been real proud of you. You have brought your grades up, you've studied your Bible diligently, but you didn't get your hair cut!" The young man waited a moment and replied, "You know Dad, I've been thinking about that. You know, Samson had long hair, Moses had long hair, Noah had long hair, and even Jesus had long hair...." To which his father replied, "Yes, and they walked everywhere they went!"

We need to be ready.  One of the most troubling aspects of Advent and Christmas is that it seems that the significance of God’s appearing – wrapped in flesh and wearing swaddling clothing – for those in the world, and even in many respects for the church - has gotten lost in all of the hoopla of the season – and the real meaning of Advent and Christmas has been trivialized and truncated. 

And so too many of us sleep through what is really significant about the season – not so much the giving and receiving of gifts - but the celebration of the one who is the gift... the celebration of gift of love and grace, and mercy, and peace – that God loved you and me so much that God decided to wrap Godself in flesh, because God wanted us to have the very best in his only begotten Son.

A wake-up call for you and me.  Even as we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s appearing, Jesus desires that our hearts be awakened to the reality of his saving grace…. That we be awakened to the fact that Jesus is the Prince of Peace… That we would awaken so that we will know that regardless of how far away we might feel from God, there is nothing that can really separate us from God’s love!