A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit (Isaiah 11:1).

My mom has a wonderful “green thumb.” She has beautiful plants inside and landscaped gardens outside. Me - not so much. (Apparently, this gift skipped a generation.) So when we purchased our home here in Chapel Hill that came with rose bushes, I had to call in my local “horticulture advisor” to show me how to take care of these beauties!

In my tutorial, she said that February is the time to cut down the roses. I cringed at the thought, but wanted to trust her. She came over with her clippers and started cutting and chopping. Meanwhile, I had my little hand-trimmers and was daintily trimming a branch here or there. “You have to cut them way back, so that in the Spring they will come back healthy and strong,” she instructed me. 

What remained of the rose bushes that blustery, winter afternoon were five stumps. As I packed up the bags of thorny limbs I thought to myself, “All I can do is wait until Spring and trust the process.” 

From the surface, a stump appears to be dead and lifeless. Quite the contrary, I learned, the roots are preparing to bring forth something new, something beautiful in due time. 

As we journey through our series Age to Age, we come to this passage where the prophet Isaiah is looking past the Winter of Captivity the Israelites will experience. On the surface, there will be chaos as a result of a divided Kingdom. There will be calamity when they are overcome by enemy empires. 

What we cannot yet see, is that God will preserve a remnant of people who will be faithful to Him. Then, it is through this remnant, the root (or line) of Jesse, that the Messiah will come.

Isaiah has a message of hope. He wants God’s Chosen People to stay rooted in the promises of God – even if they cannot yet see the fruit. 

While we continue to see the effects of sin around us (our own sin, and the trespasses of others), there is still Good News ahead. As Jesus followers, we are invited, called even, to stay rooted in what we cannot see. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Heb 11:1). The promises of God will bloom more gloriously than we can even imagine. 

If this hope is our inheritance, what kind of people ought we be here and now? How should we live in light of such a hope? Why not spend this winter getting rooted in God’s Word? Or deepen your practice of prayer by journaling where you see God working in your life or in the lives of loved ones?