The advent inaugurates the preparation for the coming of Messiah. It is a time when people plan best in order to celebrate the birthday of Jesus Christ. With a hope to have the best times of merry making and feasting. The well decorated streets and echoes of children singing carol, exchanging gifts both young and old...it is not surprising that people keep themselves busy welcoming the festive season.
Isaiah 4:2-6 is the book-ends to the collection of materials in chaps.2 - 4, surrounding the section full of disaster but with the definite explicit language of Hope. This text is a response to the immediately preceding announcement of judgement on daughter Zion. The content of this unit moves a few steps from a prophetic to an apocalyptic understanding of the future, but formally it resembles prophecies of salvation. This description of future salvation affirms that the prophecies have been effective and that the goal was the purification of the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. The section has a remarkable concentration of theologically significant expressions. It begins with a temporal phrase “on that day” which many scholars have taken to be eschatological. The context, in which the “branch” parallels the “fruit of the land” strongly suggest a hope for the fertility and fruitfulness of the land.
Christ is described by his names as the branch of the Lord and the fruit of the earth, and by proper epithets of him, as beautiful, glorious, excellent and comely. Christ is called ‘the branch’ but not as God, as human but not as a son, as a servant but not as mediator. A branch being tender denotes Christ’s state of humiliation on earth, he who grew up as a tender plant before God and was contemptible in the eyes of men: yet this branch became beautiful, being laden with the fruits of the divine grace such as righteousness, reconciliation, peace, pardon, sanctification and eternal life. These ‘divine grace’ are given freely to us in grace if the ‘branch’ grows in us. Thus, the advent season of waiting the Messiah is indeed a season of promised hope and blessings. In the text, the Messiah appeared to be excellent in his person as the Son of God and particularly in the fruits and blessings of grace, which grew upon him and come from him. The ‘survivor of Israel’ is the idea of a ‘remnant leftover from judgement’. It is possible that these escapees were thought to have survived because they were more righteous than those who were destroyed. They are accounted as ‘holy’ called with a ‘holy calling’ unto holiness.
Although destruction has been predicted against the filth of Israel, yet the writer had the confidence in God’s will to save. With this hope they persevere in godliness and holiness, we may call them ‘living and persevering Christians in Jerusalem’ whom shall be admitted to the new Jerusalem.
Likewise friends, as we welcome and anticipate for the birth of Christ in our hearts, it is imperative that we are reminded as to how we prepare ourselves to welcome the messiah? The season of Advent, as we see in today’s text, is a season of hope and anticipation for blessings. A blessing under one canopy of God’s love in Jesus Christ, all people will be drawn underneath it. A universal mission of God indeed! A season and arrival of peace where Jesus Christ will be our arbitrator and an era of peace where people will molten their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks (cf. Isaiah 2:4). In today’s context where tension, hatred, conflict and war exist within and outside the community and between nations, the message of Advent gives us hope of the arrival of love, peace and life. It calls us to engage joyfully in the mission of hope and peace. It reminds us to be agents of peace and reconciliation. The more important question is: how can we be the image of peace and hope? OR, how can we be the witness of peace and hope? In contrary and unfortunately, we Christians engage in some of the unfitting and demeaning activities to our calling. Unless we ourselves are filled with peace and hope, it is clear that we cannot participate in the God’s mission of hope, love and life. For that reason, Advent season prepares us to welcome the blessing of God in Jesus Christ, in our hearts. It is the mission of God that calls us to participate in that universal love as persevere of godliness and holiness.
May God humbles us and gives us hearts to welcome this overwhelming love so that we can be channel and befitting to participate in the God’s mission of hope, peace, love and life.
[The preacher, Arenla S., is a first year MTh Student in the Department of Missiology in Gurukul Lutheran Theological College and Research Institute,Chennai, India.]
