The Promise of Peace

Isaiah 11:1-10 December 5, 2021 preached by Pastor Doug Cooper Download Time of Reflection Quotations “Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more […]

Isaiah 11:1-10

December 5, 2021

preached by Pastor Doug Cooper

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“Waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

~ Eugene Peterson (1932-2018), American minister and writer

“Advent is the time of promise; it is not yet the time of fulfillment. We are still in the midst of everything… Space is still filled with the noise of destruction and annihilation, the shouts of self-assurance and arrogance, the weeping of despair and helplessness. But round about the horizon the eternal realities stand silent in their age-old longing. There shines on them already the first mild light of the radiant fulfillment to come. From afar sound the first notes as of pipes and voices, not yet discernable as a song or melody. It is all far off still, and only just announced and foretold. But it is happening, today.”

~ Alfred Delp (1907-1945), German Jesuit priest and philosopher of the German Resistance

“God’s dynamic plan is predicated on shalom–the intended state of peace and wholeness that all of God’s creation is meant to experience…injustice and sin tear the fabric of shalom–and shalom is the all-encompassing desire of God for peace and goodness throughout His creation.”

~ Ken Wytsma, contemporary pastor and writer

“If men will not understand the meaning of judgement, they will never come to understand the meaning of grace.”

~ Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), English writer and poet

“The [Christian] message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity – hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory – because at the Father’s will Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross.”

~ J.I. Packer (1926-2020), Theologian, cleric, and author

Isaiah 11:1-10 (ESV)

1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

2 And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,

and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;

and a little child shall lead them.

7 The cow and the bear shall graze;

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

9 They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.