Hope! Up from the stump!!

Pastor Paul Ens, Senior Pastor, Strasbourg Alliance Church

December 10, 2024

It doesn't seem like a very beautiful or complimentary symbol of Christ. But when Isaiah said that "a shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse…", he was declaring that Jesus would be coming, hundreds of years before He appeared! Isaiah was saying that the certain death, destruction, and loss of hope that enveloped the Jewish nation would give way to hope. And that the symbol of that hope was a stump. This was a symbol to hold onto, and to gain hope from. Life. Eternal Life. Jesus Himself would appear like a tender shoot, growing out of the stump (family line) of Jesse.

Last summer I wandered into our backyard, where a great big stump was the only evidence left of a very large tree that we had cut down about eight years earlier. To my great surprise I saw a three-foot shoot growing out of the apparently dead stump. What I thought was dead for eight years had "come to life".

Those who originally heard about "the stump of Jesse…" were looking forward to the Messiah (Christ) coming to bring hope and new life out of their hopeless and lifeless world. Those of us who today look back to Jesus' arrival, are called to realize afresh and anew that Hope came to us on earth, that first Christmas Day. It came to us from "…the stump of Jesse".

In each of our lives we have dead old stumps. We have things that look like they will never produce new life. However, what we know of Jesus is that "at the appointed time" He always appears. He appears bringing new life, hope, and fruit out of that which seems to have died. Watch "the stumps" in your life this Christmas. The One who comes from the stump of Jesse, just might surprise you. He may appear and infuse new life and hope into things that were apparently dead. That is what THIS JESUS DOES.