The Loop

From Stump to Shoot

Have you ever seen pictures of the past that created a sort of flashback to a previous moment in time? Have you ever had that happen? In prep for this message, I reached out to my mom and asked her to send me some pictures of Christmas from my childhood. One photo literally took me back to that day - my dad had bought a home casino kit and turned our kitchen table into a casino, complete with a pit boss hat, teaching all the neighborhood kids how to gamble. We had a blast that day, and it was a moment frozen in time that came flooding back with just one picture.

What you're gonna see today is prophecies that do that same kind of thing in us. They may be weird to you or unfamiliar to you, but the intended goal is that when you see them pop up in what we call the New Testament, they're supposed to flash back to, "Oh, that's because he told us about that before."

The Ancient Prophecy That Changed Everything

Let's look at the prophecy first. This comes from the book of Isaiah, chapter 11, verse 1: "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit."

You'll notice the first thing - Jesse. Who is this Jesse character? Well, Jesse is the father of King David. If you go back in time about 700 years before Jesus, you get to the prophet Isaiah. And if you go before that 300 years or so, you get to King David. That's super relevant because the Jewish people are meticulous about tracking their genealogy.

All the way back in 2 Samuel 7:12, about 1,000 years before Jesus, the prophet Nathan is sent to David and says: "When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood. And I will establish his kingdom... I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever."

What's This Stump Business About?

But what do we mean by "the stump of Jesse"? This summer, I was standing in my yard looking at this huge tree with a massive crack coming down one of the heavy branches. I could see this thing falling on a car or somebody walking by, so I had it cut down and the stump ground out. A stump just represents something that was once beautiful and alive, but it's now cut down.

In terms of the Bible, when the Messiah comes, there's going to be a stump. The stump, in essence, is the old way, the old order of doing things. John the Baptist, right before Jesus pops up onto the scene, starts prophesying: "Do not think you could say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our Father... The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire" (Matthew 3:9-10).

John the Baptist is reminding the Israelites that Jesus is doing a new thing, and you cannot fit the new thing inside the old thing. This is why Jesus says, "You can't put new wine in old wine skins." When you put new wine in old wineskins, the new wine will expand and burst open the old wineskins.

The Christmas Connection

So what does any of this have to do with the Christmas story? Let's look at Matthew and Luke, the two gospels that tell us about Jesus's birth.

In Matthew 1:1, we read: "This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Matthew is connecting the dots so that when the Messiah arrived, you could say without a doubt you knew where he was coming from. When you get to verse six, it says: "and Jesse, the father of King David."

These moments in scripture are flashbacks. They are intended to remind us of God's promises and faithfulness. What that means is if God can make known the end from the beginning, then he could figure out how it's going to work together in between.

In Luke's account, we see Joseph traveling "to Bethlehem, the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David" (Luke 2:4). This wasn't a coincidence - this was prophecy being fulfilled.

How Jesus Actually Saves Us

The angel tells Joseph that Mary "will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). The word Jesus in Hebrew is Yeshua, which sounds like Yehoshua (Joshua), and they both mean "God saves."

But how does Jesus actually save us from our sins? Going back to Isaiah 11:2-3: "The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him... the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and of might, the spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord."

Because this Messiah would delight in the fear of the Lord - meaning he would put God first above everything - Jesus lives the only perfect life that qualified him to be the perfect sacrifice in our place. Jesus, when he goes to the cross, literally took my penalty that my sins deserved. He never sinned, so he died as my substitute. I should have been the one on the cross. He took my place, and in doing that, he made me one with God again.

New Life from Dead Situations

But that's not the end of the story. Back to Isaiah 11:1: "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse. From his roots, a branch will bear fruit."

You're gonna look at this thing that looks like it's dead. You're gonna look at this thing that looks like it no longer has any life left in it, but you're gonna see this healthy, alive root popping out of the dead thing.

I know some of you as you're going into Christmas, this is really hard for you. You're trying to juggle schedules in a broken home. You never set out for this. But now here you are, and it looks like a stump of a tree that was cut down, and it's dead, but yet here's the shoot popping up out of it. It's because God is birthing a new thing.

Paul says in Romans 8:28: "And God works all things together for the good of those who love him." So the question for me isn't, is God faithful to me? The question for me is, am I going to walk in faithfulness to him because he's faithful to me?

Putting It Into Practice

Isaiah 11:10 gives us this promise: "In that day, the root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples. The nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious."

No matter what you face in this world, no matter where you come from, when you find the root of Jesse - his name is Jesus - go all in. Give him everything. Let him save you from your sins and let him lead you into a green, beautiful new life.

God, anywhere in our lives where you have had to cut something down, maybe something evil or sinful, or maybe to discipline us and lead us in a new direction, where what looks like death, we wouldn't accept it as the end. You're too good.

In Jesus' name, what appears to be dead finds new life and is made glorious. It begins today.

What are you waiting for?

Share