PHOTO: Mary van Balen Today’s Old Testament reading is from Isaiah. We will hear much from Isaiah this advent season, and today’s passage (11.1-10) is an example of his confidence in God’s goodness and wonder at Divine glory. From the concrete image of a shoot sprouting from a stump, the prophet moves us to the infusion of the Spirit that will fill the One who comes. He will possess wisdom and will seek justice for the poor.
His kingdom is like no other, filled with glorious impossibilities:the wolf the guest of the lamb, the calf and young lion exploring together, the lion eating hay, a child playing in the cobra’s den.
If all these probable impossibilities are to come, is nothing impossible? All people living in peace? No wars? No hunger or famine? No abuse?
This morning, I want to believe, but my heart does not resonate with the joy of the verses. I look at my Christmas Cactus, ready to bloom in the midst of gray, rainy winter. Its magenta buds add a splash of color to the room, but I struggle to savor it.
“It is in the will, not the heart,” a friend of mine once said when we were both struggling with a dry spell of spirit. I remember her words today and choose to believe. I moved my plant to sit next to the advent “wreath,” both signs of promise and hope in its fulfillment. I sit in God’s Presence for a while, both of us comfortable with my silence; me not so comfortable with God’s. We rest together, and then I move into the rest of the day, choosing hope.
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