A couple of years ago, my family came into possession of a brown Shetland pony named Butch. This little fella has brought much delight to the children in our house, but he’s also caused a few headaches for this mama.
Like the time he got into my fruit trees. I looked out the window one chilly autumn day to see him scratching his round belly on the last one. The others he had already uprooted. I opened the door and ran, barefoot and screaming, at him.
Unfortunately, I was too late; he had broken the fragile trunk of my young pear tree.
Winter came, and the stump was covered in snow and forgotten. After all, it was dead with no hope of coming back. It certainly wasn’t providing the juicy pears I had imagined in my mind when I planted it.
The following spring when I mowed my lawn for the first time, I realized I had never removed the stump. As I pulled the dead grass and leaves away from around the stump in order to pull it up, I was shocked to see a single shoot with two little leaves coming from the stump I had thought long dead.
Just like in this verse from Isaiah:
“A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots, a Branch will bear fruit.” (Isaiah 11:1)
As I read that verse yesterday, it struck me: Advent is not just about waiting and longing for the arrival of the Baby Jesus; Advent is about the beginning of the magnificent redemption story.
A new shoot from the old cut-off seemingly dead stump. Making good that which was bad. Isn’t that the picture of redemption?
God is in the business of redeeming that which is broken, that which is gasping for air, that which is hanging by a mere thread. In fact, redemption is the business Jesus was sent to Earth to complete.
I hope you will join me each Sunday of this Advent season as I explore God’s redemption plan and how it played out in the birth of a baby in that stable long ago.
Here are some questions to reflect on for this first week:
-How have you seen God’s redemption in your life already?
-What area of your life needs to see God’s redeeming work?
