The Kingdom That is Not Yet

Scripture — Isaiah 11:1-10 (NRSV)

A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see
or decide by what his ears hear,
but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor
and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.
The wolf shall live with the lamb;
the leopard shall lie down with the kid;
the calf and the lion will feed together,
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze;
their young shall lie down together;
and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp,
and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den.
They will not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea.
On that day the root of Jesse shall stand as a signal to the peoples; the nations shall inquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious.

Devotion

How long? A relatively brief interrogative sentence that is loaded with meaning. Children ask it in anticipation of whatever comes tomorrow: Christmas, birthdays, a trip, dinner, dessert. Families ask it in good moments of a closing date and on bad days when a family member’s health is ailing. Society asks, “How long?” waiting for justice or peace. Everyone has some sense of anticipation of the advent of something we are waiting for.

How do you long and wait well? How do you wait with a Kipling-esque “not be[ing made] tired by waiting?” Or perhaps more importantly, if we remember to love God and our neighbor, how do we encourage others who have been waiting for what we have—the privilege of not having to wait?

Advent impresses upon our hearts the reminder that we are living in an unrealized kingdom. But because the kingdom exists, the king asks its citizens questions. How will you wait for the kingdom that is not yet? Will you make something of the world that points toward its coming? Will you remember others around you who experience the great weight of its absence? Will you grow tired and make your own kingdom instead? Nobody signs up for longing; it is impressed on everyone. We must choose how to deal with it.

Some people ignore what they long for. Isaiah chose to speak into the longing. He was bestowed with the gift of clarity to contribute to a lineage of the ones who came before, ones who all spoke of the one to come (John 5:35). He longed by looking at the promises. When the trees won’t bud, there is nothing on a stump to look for a shoot. When authority judges humanity with callous hands, look again for one coming who has an administration that judges impartially. When humanity and beast alike are estranged, look again for a day when nature videos won’t talk about prey anymore. Words like predator and enemy will lose their luster. Peace will be normal because Peace will live in the city with us. What Isaiah longs for will not come for another seven hundred years; but he chose to look to see something on the other side of the destruction.

Isaiah spoke of a new day and a new peace by looking into the brokenness of what was left. Humanity has always looked for fig leaves. The hauntings of the fall lead us to search for ways not to stare into the grief of brokenness. But Isaiah said that the broken stump is where redemption will come. We find an unrealized kingdom in the sawdust of the stump. We long not by looking away from the stump but by looking into it. Howard Thurman, in Meditations of the Heart, called it the growing edge:

LOOK WELL TO THE GROWING EDGE. All around us, worlds are dying and new worlds are being born; all around us, life is dying and life is being born. The fruit ripens on the tree, the roots are silently at work in the darkness of the earth against a time when there shall be new leaves, fresh blossoms, green fruit. Such is the growing edge! It is the extra breath from the exhausted lung, the one more thing to try when all else has failed, the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor. This is the basis of hope in moments of despair, the incentive to carry on when times are out of joint and men have lost their reason, the source of confidence when worlds crash and dreams whiten into ash. The birth of the child—life’s most dramatic answer to death—this is the growing edge incarnate. Look well to the growing edge!

Longing is how Jesus lived. He longed to return to the fullness of glory, the trinitarian dance of love. So he talked about it often. He longed for Jerusalem to return; he wept and cried over it (Matt 23:37-39). And then he walked into the city to change it. He longed to see the kingdom fully realized, although even he was unsure when it would come (Matt 24:36). Then he performed miracles and taught because his kingdom was not of this world. He longed for wholeness, then looked at 10 lepers, at tax collectors, dead bodies, and storms, and they all got better. He longed for a great banquet, and then he looked at the twelve and gave them a new shoot to remember at his last supper. He longed for his disciples to be where he was (John 17:24), then he looked at the cross until it was finished, and new gentile shoots sprang up.

Isaiah longed for peace as he looked forward and found Jesus. When we long for peace, we also glimpse the unrealized kingdom coming.

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: Peace and Prosperity (Isaiah 9ff.).